I recently watched the heart-shaped leaves of my backyard redbud tree flutter in the stiff breeze as the last few remaining pink blossoms floated to the grass below.

For two decades I have witnessed this quiet springtime rite of passage when the tiny buds turn into beautiful flowers and eventually fall to the earth a couple of weeks later.

The only time I missed the annual ‘redbud show’ was in early 2009 while I was away from home for …

The 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is now history, but there's still plenty of news to report from the meeting.

In this edition of the Beacon's ASCO multiple myeloma updates, the focus is on pre­sen­ta­tions that took place the last two days of the ASCO meet­ing – this past Monday and Tuesday – and which con­cerned poten­tial new multiple myeloma ther­a­pies.

There was a block of oral pre­sen­ta­tions related to poten­tial new myeloma ther­a­pies that took …

This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting began the morning of last Friday, and the meeting will run through Tues­day.

Multiple myeloma-related pre­sen­ta­tions are taking place every day of the meeting. Friday, how­ever, was the busiest day at the meeting in terms of oral pre­sen­ta­tions with new myeloma-related re­search. There were nine such pre­sen­ta­tions during a single afternoon session focused on multiple myeloma.

In addi­tion, there were myeloma-related education session pre­sen­ta­tions on Saturday, yesterday, and today. There …

“How are you?”

This innocent, well-intentioned question often trips me up.

I have lived in a small Colorado town for the last 40 years. Until recently, I was a nursing professor in the same valley for 15 of those 40 years. In addition, I have been a very active participant in this mountain valley community. I was a vol­un­teer with the local fire department for years, I belong to the same small church, and I volunteer in schools and the …

Hello again, myeloma world.

Today's review of myeloma-related research and news covers a particu­larly wide range of topics.

We start our review with a quick look at a new study related to Pomalyst and its use in heavily pretreated multiple myeloma patients. (The Beacon published a separate article about this study earlier today.)

Next, we report on changes the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­istra­tion has made in the procedures for “com­passion­ate use” access to unapproved drug treat­ments, including potential …

A team of European researchers has pub­lished results of a major clinical trial investi­gat­ing the efficacy and safety of Pomalyst (poma­lido­mide, Imnovid) and dexa­metha­sone in multiple myeloma patients who have had many prior ther­apies.

Results of the trial, known as the STRATUS (MM-010) study, have pre­vi­ously been presented at several major medical meetings. This is the first time, how­ever, that the results have been summarized in a journal article.

The new efficacy and safety results are in line …

Have you ever thought about the many television situation comedies, or sitcoms, that we watch? In almost every episode, there is conflict of some kind. The mom and dad argue about junior’s latest problem at school, parents struggle to keep their romance alive, and single people brave ill-fated dates in hopes of finding true love. With all these troubles, have you ever wondered why we tune in?

On shows like "The Big Bang Theory," we can’t wait to see Sheldon spurn Amy’s advances …