The cancer world is full of clichés.  We are inundated on a daily basis with expressions, such as “the long and courageous battle,” “stay positive,” “survivor,” “every day is precious,” and now of course, pink ribbons.

One of the most common cancer clichés is the idea of the “new normal.”  After a cancer diagnosis or cancer treatments, people constantly toss around the term new normal. But what does this really mean?

When I was younger, in my twenties and thirties, …

Results from a number of multiple myeloma studies were presented yesterday during the second day of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 2011 annual meeting in San Diego.

Predicting Response To Immunomodulatory Drugs

During an oral presentation and a poster presentation yesterday, researchers discussed the role of the protein cereblon in the treatment of myeloma.  Results from one study (abstract) in myeloma cell lines suggested that cereblon plays a key role in whether multiple myeloma patients respond to the …

Onyx Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. com­pany developing car­filz­o­mib as a potential new treat­ment for multiple myeloma, announced earlier today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted "standard review designation" to the com­pany's New Drug Applica­tion for car­filz­o­mib.

This means that the FDA expects to make a decision by July 27, 2012, on Onyx's application to market carfilzomib (Kyprolis) in the United States.

The announcement is a disappointment for Onyx, which had hoped to receive a so-called "priority review" …

Yesterday was the first day of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy (ASH) 2011 annual meeting, which is being held in San Diego.

Although the day featured no oral pre­sen­ta­tions of new myeloma-related re­search, it started with an in­ter­est­ing educational session focused on mul­ti­ple myeloma.

There also were a num­ber of poster pre­sen­ta­tions during the day summarizing im­por­tant new re­search findings.

The educational session in the morn­ing featured three pre­sen­ta­tions by lead­ing myeloma spe­cialists.

Induction Therapy And Maintenance Treatment

The first …

In a recent editorial published in the journal Haematologica, two Spanish myeloma experts, Dr. Jesús San-Miguel and Dr. Maria-Victoria Mateos from the University Hospital of Salamanca, review the progress that has been made in the treatment of multiple myeloma.

More importantly, Drs. San-Miguel and Mateos propose several actions they believe will bring the medical community closer to a cure for myeloma.

These actions include achieving and maintaining the best possible response early in the treatment of the disease, using advanced …

The 53^rd annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) will be held this Saturday, December 10, through Tuesday, December 13, in San Diego.

Over 20,000 people are expected to attend this year’s meeting, where experts from around the world will gather to discuss current research regarding the diagnosis and treatment of various blood diseases, including multiple myeloma.

The ASH meeting is one of three annual scientific meetings where important new myeloma-related research findings are usually reported.   The other …

“Daddy, do you remember that Christmas when you were bald?” my eight-year old daughter Lizzie recently asked me.

Until that point we had been talking about the eagles that occasionally glided in the skies above the lake next to our home in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri.

“Uh… yes,” I chuckled, amused at her segue from bald eagles to the cue-ball that I had donned three years earlier during my chemotherapy treatments for myeloma. “Do you remember when I was …