The 47th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) will take place Friday, June 3, through Tuesday, June 7, in Chicago.

More than 30,000 clin­i­cal spe­cialists from all over the world are ex­pected to attend the five-day meeting to discuss the cur­rent re­search in cancer treat­ment and care. This year’s meeting will primarily focus on the theme of “Patients, Pathways, Progress.”

The meeting will in­clude many pre­sen­ta­tions and seminars focused spe­cif­i­cally on mul­ti­ple myeloma. The ASCO website cur­rently lists over 40 myeloma-based abstracts ^[1].

The Myeloma Beacon will be cover­ing the meeting, so readers can ex­pect many articles during and after the meeting about the key myeloma findings.

At the meeting, Dr. Kenneth Anderson ^[2] from the Dana-Farber Cancer Center will re­ceive the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award, which recog­nizes “innovative clin­i­cal re­search and devel­op­ments that have changed the way oncologists think about the general prac­tice of on­col­ogy.”  He is being honored for his achieve­ments in myeloma re­search, in­clud­ing his stud­ies on novel ther­a­pies that have helped trans­form myeloma ther­apy.

Treatments Under De­vel­op­ment

Several of this year’s ASCO pre­sen­ta­tions will unveil re­­sults from Phase 1 and Phase 2 clin­i­cal trials of drugs under devel­op­ment for the treat­ment of mul­ti­ple myeloma. In par­tic­u­lar, there will be many pre­sen­ta­tions on carfilzomib ^[3] (Kyprolis ^[4]), pomalidomide ^[5] (Pomalyst ^[6]), elotuzumab ^[7], panobinostat ^[8] (Farydak ^[9]), and sev­er­al newer drugs that are in the early stages of clin­i­cal testing.

During a poster session on June 4, re­­sults will be pre­sented from four Phase 2 clin­i­cal trials of car­filz­o­mib for re­lapsed / re­frac­tory (resistant) myeloma.  These stud­ies in­clude a clin­i­cal trial of single-agent car­filz­o­mib, a study of car­filz­o­mib in com­bi­na­tion with Revlimid ^[10] (lena­lido­mide) and dexamethasone ^[11] (Decadron), a study of car­filz­o­mib in patients who have never been treated with Velcade ^[12] (bor­tez­o­mib), and a study of car­filz­o­mib in com­bi­na­tion with cur­rent myeloma treat­ments.  There will also be a poster on June 5 about an on­go­ing Phase 3 study com­par­ing car­filz­o­mib, Revlimid, and dexa­meth­a­sone ther­apy to Revlimid and dexa­meth­a­sone without car­filz­o­mib.

On June 5, there will be three oral pre­sen­ta­tions about po­ten­tial new anti-myeloma drugs.

First, Dr. Noopur Raje will present re­­sults from a Phase 1 study eval­u­ating the optimal dosage for LY2127399 (a human anti­body that has shown anti-myeloma ac­­tiv­ity) when given in com­bi­na­tion with Velcade to pre­vi­ously treated myeloma patients.  Results in­di­cate that more than 50 per­cent of patients may respond to this ther­apy.

Next, Dr. Jesus Berdeja will present re­­sults from a Phase 1 study of lorvotuzumab mertansine ^[13] in com­bi­na­tion with Revlimid and dexa­meth­a­sone in a spe­cif­ic subset of re­lapsed / re­frac­tory myeloma patients whose myeloma cells con­tain the CD56 pro­tein.  Preliminary re­­sults in­di­cate that about 50 per­cent of the study par­tic­i­pants may respond to this com­bi­na­tion ther­apy.  Updated re­­sults will be pre­sented at the meeting.

Then Dr. Paul Richardson will present a Phase 2 study that found the com­bi­na­tion of elotuzumab, Revlimid, and dexa­meth­a­sone to be active and well tol­er­ated in re­lapsed myeloma patients.  Preliminary re­­sults in­di­cate that 80 per­cent to 90 per­cent of myeloma patients may respond to this ther­apy. Results from the Phase 1 study will be pre­sented in a poster session on June 6.  There will also be a poster pre­sen­ta­tion about elotuzumab’s effect on natural killer cells, which are im­mune cells that kill cancer cells.

During a poster session on June 6, re­searchers will present the re­­sults of a Phase 2 study eval­u­ating the com­bi­na­tion of poma­lido­mide plus dexa­meth­a­sone in myeloma patients pre­vi­ously treated with Revlimid.  Preliminary re­­sults show that about 35 per­cent of patients pre­vi­ously treated with Revlimid respond to poma­lido­mide.

There will also be poster pre­sen­ta­tions about a Phase 1b study of panobinostat and Velcade and an on­go­ing Phase 3 study of panobinostat, Velcade, and dexa­meth­a­sone, both in re­lapsed / re­frac­tory patients.

Additionally, re­­sults from a Phase 1 study of GDC-0941 ^[14] will be pre­sented during a poster session.  GDC-0941 is an oral phosphoinositide-3 kinase in­hib­i­tor.  The study tested the drug in patients with myeloma or an ad­vanced solid tumor.

Revlimid And Secondary Cancers

A section of the oral session on June 5 will focus on the risk of devel­op­ing sec­ond­ary cancers after treat­ment with Revlimid. The U.S. Food and Drug Admin­istra­tion recently an­nounced that it is cur­rently investigating whether long-term use of Revlimid  increases a patient’s risk of devel­op­ing a sec­ond cancer (see re­lated Beacon ^[15] news).

During the session, Dr. Antonio Palumbo will present the latest sec­ond­ary cancer data from his study in which newly diag­nosed, elderly myeloma patients were treated with melphalan ^[16] (Alkeran) and prednisone ^[17] with or without co-administration of Revlimid, followed by Revlimid main­te­nance.

Dr. Adrianna Rossi will then present data on the rate of sec­ond­ary cancers six years after newly diag­nosed myeloma patients were treated with Revlimid.

Then Dr. Meletios Dimopoulos will present sec­ond­ary cancer data from two stud­ies in which re­lapsed and/or re­frac­tory patients re­ceived Revlimid plus dexa­meth­a­sone or a placebo plus dexa­meth­a­sone.

Afterward, Dr. Ola Landgren will lead a dis­cus­sion on the topic.

Bisphosphonates

This year’s ASCO oral session on myeloma will in­clude pre­sen­ta­tions about bis­phos­pho­nates and their ability to treat myeloma bone dis­ease as well as their po­ten­tial beneficial im­pact on sur­vival. Although bis­phos­pho­nates are cur­rently the gold-standard treat­ment for myeloma bone dis­ease, recent re­­sults from clin­i­cal stud­ies have sug­gested that even myeloma patients without bone dis­ease may ben­e­fit from treat­ment with bis­phos­pho­nates.

Dr. Kevin Boyd will present re­­sults from a study that eval­u­ated the ability of Zometa ^[18] (zoledronic acid) to reduce skeletal-related events and im­prove pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival in myeloma patients both with and without bone dis­ease. In another pre­sen­ta­tion about the same study, Dr. Faith Davies will discuss the im­pact of Zometa and Bonefos ^[19] (clodronate) on sur­vival times for newly diag­nosed myeloma patients.

After these two talks, Dr. David Roodman will lead a dis­cus­sion on the topic.

For more in­­for­ma­tion on ASCO’s 47th Annual Meeting, in­clud­ing pre­sen­ta­tion abstracts, the final schedule, and in­­for­ma­tion on attending, please see the American Society of Clinical Oncology ^[20] meeting website.