Monday was the third full day of “ASH 2010,” this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.  This day was the busiest of the entire meeting in terms of multiple myeloma-related material.  Presentations summarizing the latest myeloma research stretched from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m.

The morning presentations from Monday will be covered in this update, and presentations from the afternoon and evening will be covered in another update later today.

The day featured a large number of …

Pomalidomide has demonstrated efficacy in heavily pre-treated multiple myeloma patients who have been treated with – or are even refractory to – Revlimid and Velcade.

Three studies of the use of pomalidomide (Pomalyst) in relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma patients were presented yesterday at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting in Orlando.

Pomalidomide, which is being developed by the pharmaceutical company Celgene, is an immunomodulatory agent that induces the immune system to destroy myeloma cells. It belongs to the …

Interim results of a Phase 3 trial show no statistically significant differ­ences in relapse and overall survival rates between multiple myeloma patients who received a donor stem cell transplant as their second transplant compared to patients receiving two sequential transplants with their own stem cells.

Patients who received a donor transplant had an increased risk of death and other serious side effects, which outweighed the therapeutic benefits of the procedure.

The results of the trial were presented yesterday by Dr. Amrita Krishnan from the City …

Yesterday was the second full day of the 2010 American Society of Hematology annual meeting in Orlando. It was a particularly busy day in terms of material related to multiple myeloma, with numerous oral presentations during the day and an extensive poster session in the early evening.

One of the first presentations of the day was actually a press conference held to review the results of a Phase 3 study comparing the efficacy and safety of two different stem cell …

Carfilzomib con­tinues to show promising results in multiple myeloma according to four studies presented in a poster session yesterday at the 2010 American Society of Hematology annual meeting in Orlando.

Carfilzomib (Kyprolis), developed by Onyx Pharmaceuticals, is a new drug that is cur­rently being in­ves­ti­gated as a potential treat­ment for multiple myeloma. It belongs to the same class of drugs as Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib). However it works slightly differently by binding to different proteins than Velcade.

Recent research has indicated that …

The American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy meeting swung into full gear yesterday. The day was full of invited talks and a poster session.

The morn­ing kicked off with an education session in which attendees could learn about sev­er­al myeloma-related topics.

The first pre­sen­ta­tion was by Dr. Ola Landgren from the National Cancer In­sti­tute and National In­sti­tutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Landgren spoke about mono­clonal gam­mop­athy of undetermined sig­nif­i­cance (MGUS) and smol­der­ing myeloma, precursor dis­eases of mul­ti­ple myeloma.

A study pub­lished …

In the last 10 years, we have witnessed dramatic changes in the treatment of multiple myeloma that have provided hope and optimism to myeloma patients worldwide.

We have a better understanding of the biology of the disease and an array of approved and investigational new drugs with excellent clinical activity.

Importantly, we have also come to the realization that myeloma is not one genetically distinct disease, but a clinical condition with many distinct molecular subtypes. Indeed, there are subtle differences …