The International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) has issued updated criteria for the diagnosis of multiple myeloma.

The criteria have been published in The Lancet Oncology and are ac­com­panied by recommendations for monitoring and updated criteria for other related plasma cell disorders.

The new diagnostic criteria represent a paradigm shift in the approach to multiple myeloma and will have considerable impact on the management of the disease.

For decades, the diagnosis of multiple myeloma required the presence of “end-organ” damage that …

The 2014 International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) Annual Summit took place in Milan, Italy on June 9 and 10.

The summit is a special meeting organized by the International Myeloma Foun­da­tion in which leading myeloma researchers get to brainstorm col­lectively about the most pressing issues in the field, find ways to col­lab­o­rate, and plan future laboratory and clinical studies.

The IMWG summit is hailed by most attendees as the most important meeting for myeloma researchers worldwide. It is a unique …

Last year, 2013, was a great year for myeloma research.

We had a number of important discoveries that will impact diagnosis, moni­tor­ing, prognosis, and treatment of the disease. Some new findings provide us with a better understanding of myeloma biology and mecha­nisms of drug resistance, while others present information that immedi­ate­ly impacts how patients are man­aged.

Collectively, these discoveries represent a significant advance to­wards our goal of curing myeloma.

I present here my list of the top 10 most compelling …

Over the last year or two, I have seen an increasing number of patients with multiple myeloma who are deeply worried that they have “failed” treatment because they are not in “complete response” (CR).  This phe­nom­e­non is gaining further steam with recent interest in “minimal re­sid­ual disease” (MRD).

In fact, with numerous educational programs, daily emails, and ubiqui­tous lectures touting a new regimen with even higher complete re­sponse rates, I am now almost as worried as them. Of course, the …

One of the most difficult questions in oncology is: “How long do I have to live?”

Patients often bring this up to their physicians following a diagnosis of cancer, and periodically during the course of their disease.

Of course, this is an impossible question to answer because we as physicians can seldom predict what the future holds for a particular patient. We can prob­a­bly estimate averages, but no patient is average; everyone is unique. Faced with this dilemma, each physician …

One of the most frequent questions that I get asked by multiple myeloma patients is: What is the current role of stem cell transplantation in myeloma therapy?

As the conversation continues, several pertinent questions arise: Should I get a transplant? Am I too old for a transplant? Is it better to do one now, or can I wait? One or two? Two back to back, or one now and one later? And so on…

Myeloma is the number one use …

Each year at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy we hear about dozens of new drugs that are able to annihilate mul­ti­ple myeloma cells in the test tube and in animal models. Unfortunately, at the same meeting, we also sit through pre­sen­ta­tions and walk by posters of drugs that looked hot in the laboratory but then fail to work when given to real patients with myeloma.

This is not new. It has been the story with myeloma …