This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, which is being held in Chicago, began on Friday and goes through Tuesday.

Sunday started with a poster session in which im­por­tant new re­search findings were summarized on posters dis­played throughout a large conference hall.

The stud­ies pre­sented during the session were on a wide variety of myeloma-related topics, in­clud­ing new treat­ments being devel­oped for myeloma, cur­rently used regi­mens, smol­der­ing mul­ti­ple myeloma, and findings on initial ther­apy.

Some of the …

Although this year's annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) started last Friday, the first myeloma-related presentations at the meeting did not take place until Saturday afternoon, the second day of the conference.

The presentations Saturday were given as part of a single education session titled “Multiple Myeloma: Advances in Diagnostics and Management.”

Education sessions, it should be pointed out, are different than most of the sessions that typically take place at scientific meetings such as ASCO. …

An advisory committee of the European Medicines Agency has issued a positive opinion regarding European approval of pomalidomide for the treatment of cer­tain patients with multiple myeloma.

Specifically, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) rec­om­mended that pomalidomide be approved for use in com­bi­na­tion with dexa­metha­sone (Decadron) for the treatment of re­lapsed and refractory multiple myeloma patients who have received at least two prior therapies, including both Revlimid (lenalidomide) and Velcade …

Findings from a recent analysis show that autologous (own) stem cell trans­plantation became significantly more common among North Ameri­can multiple myeloma patients between 1994 and 2005.

During that period, the rate of autologous stem cell transplantation across all myeloma patients increased fivefold, driven by a twentyfold increase in the num­ber of transplants carried out in myeloma patients as part of their initial therapy.

The findings also show that short-term overall survival for myeloma patients who received transplants in­creased significantly during …

Hi. My name is Karen. I’m a myeloma patient, and this is my first column here at The Myeloma Beacon.

I’ve been a regular visitor to this site for a long time, and I’ve always enjoyed reading the columns written by other myeloma patients. I decided to share my own story when I realized I’ve become a myeloma old-timer.

I was diagnosed over seven years ago, when I was only 30 years old. So, I’m a myeloma youngster and an …

In a recent review article pub­lished in the journal Clinical Cancer Re­search, two myeloma experts from the Dana-Farber Cancer In­sti­tute, Dr. Nikhil Munshi and Dr. Kenneth Anderson, review the latest strategies in the treat­ment of mul­ti­ple myeloma.

In their article, the experts discuss newer ther­a­pies that appear to be promising in clin­i­cal and pre­clin­i­cal stud­ies.

According to the physicians, com­bi­na­tion ther­a­pies that spe­cif­i­cally target a patient’s ge­netic form of the dis­ease will be re­quired for long-term dis­ease con­trol and ultimately …

One of the advantages of living in the U.S. north­east is the chance to ex­peri­ence the change of the seasons. This year, the arrival of spring coin­cided with a new medical regimen for me and what has seemed like a rebirth of my own life.

As I described in my April column, this past win­ter was the season of my dis­content. In less than three months, I experienced two bouts of pneu­monia. I was at the hospital at least …