How has your week been, myeloma world?

Summer definitely is here at Myeloma Morning Headquarters. We had temper­a­tures yesterday and today that rival those normally seen in early August.

We're not exactly sure how we feel about this devel­op­ment.

As for myeloma-related news, we have a lot of ground to cover.

We have one new myeloma research study that we summarize at length. It's about a difficult subject, namely, the impact of early relapse on the over­all survival of multiple …

I am about as far as anyone can be from being an expert on trees, which may make the title of this column a bit perplexing. I can tell big trees from small ones, ever­greens from deciduous, and can even identify mag­no­lias, dogwoods, and (on a good day) maples and oaks. But that’s about as far as my expertise goes.

Rockets are a different matter: I am always baffled when a film uses video of the wrong type of rocket. …

The European Com­mis­sion has approved Darzalex (dara­tu­mu­mab) for the treat­ment of multiple myeloma.

The approval means that, for the first time, myeloma patients in Europe will be able to be treated with Darzalex without having to enroll in a clin­i­cal trial.

The European Darzalex approval is for use of the drug as a single agent – meaning Darzalex by itself, with no other anti-myeloma ther­apy – in adults with re­lapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. Patients must have been …

Good morning, myeloma world.

We hope you had a pleasant weekend and that your new week is off to a good start.

The big news today is that Darzalex (daratumumab) has been approved in Europe as a new treatment for multiple myeloma. We will be pub­lish­ing a separate news article on the approval, which was announced a few hours ago. In the mean­time, you can find information about the approval in this press release from Genmab, the …

It is easy to become self-centered when diagnosed with a serious illness like cancer. That self-centeredness becomes even more intense when the cancer is considered incurable, as is the case with multiple myeloma.

It's easy to give someone a pass in such a situation because it is com­pletely understandable how, when confronted with their own mortality, they would tend to look at things differently.

As I reflect on the four years that I have lived with multiple myeloma, I …

Good morning, myeloma world.

Since the last edition of Myeloma Morning, abstracts for two im­por­tant upcoming medical meetings have been made public: the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, which will take place June 3 through June 7 in Chicago, and the European Hematology Association (EHA) annual congress, which is scheduled for June 9 through June 12 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The publication of the abstracts and the meetings themselves mean that there is going to be a lot …

Call me Tik-Tok.

Tik-Tok was the mechanical man created by L. Frank Baum and intro­duced in Ozma of Oz. While he appears in other Oz books, it is in his debut that the reader gains an appreciation for Tik-Tok’s mechanical works, including his apparently tireless activities.

There was one catch with Tik-Tok. As a mechanical man, he had to be wound: under his left arm for thinking, under his right arm for speech, and in the center of his back …