Good morning, myeloma world.

Things have settled down here at Myeloma Morning Headquarters compared to how they were 36 hours ago. We once again have 21^st century tech­nology doing what it is supposed to be doing. It's wonderful.

Speaking of wonderful, let's talk some more about the multiple myeloma research to be presented at the upcoming 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). We discussed the meeting in the previous edition of Myeloma Morning, noting that ASCO has re­leased the titles – but not the abstracts – of the oral and poster pre­senta­tions on the meeting agenda.

Also in the pre­vi­ous Myeloma Morning, we listed the myeloma-related oral presentations planned for the meeting, and outline some of our thoughts about those presentations.

We'd like to con­tinue with the ASCO theme today by discussing the myeloma-related poster presentations planned for the meeting. We'll then return to our regularly scheduled pro­gram – reviews of recently published myeloma research, as well as other myeloma news – in the next edition of Myeloma Morning.

So, about those myeloma-related poster presentations on the 2016 ASCO meeting agenda. We have a com­plete list of them for you. Here's the link: ASCO 2016 Multiple Myeloma Abstracts – Poster Presentations.

At this point, the list is just the titles of the presentations and who will be presenting them. We won't have entire abstracts for another month. The titles, however, give us a chance to see if there is anything particularly interesting on the agenda. We also can get a sense of common themes across the presentations.

Here are what we see.

First, there are noticeably more myeloma-related poster presentations on this year's ASCO agenda than were on the 2015 agenda. There will be about 50 posters summarizing new myeloma-related research at this year's meeting. The Beacon's list of posters for least year's meeting had only 30 entries.

Second, despite the increased number of poster presentations at this year's meeting, there aren't many posters on the topic of particular interest to patients and physicians alike – poten­tial new multiple myeloma ther­a­pies.

There is one poster each about MOR202 (#8012), selinexor (#8013), and Venclexta (venetoclax) (#8032). There are no posters related to Keytruda (pem­bro­lizu­mab), or, for that matter, isatuximab, filanesib, or marizomib. There also are no posters about inves­ti­ga­tional ther­a­pies that would cause a knowledgeable patient or physician to say: “Hmmm … I haven't heard of that drug before.”

Third, some of the increase in the number of poster presentations this year is due to an expanded number of “follow-up” presentations – presentations reporting further investigations of pre­vi­ously reported clin­i­cal trial results. These follow-up presentations can report updated results, results broken down in alter­na­tive ways, or results that focus on a specific subset of a trial's participants.

This ap­proach to producing new research presentations may seem somewhat mechanical, but it can provide very important in­­for­ma­tion. Research that breaks down results in new ways can provide, for example, insights into the impact of a patient's chromosomal ab­nor­mal­i­ties on treat­ment out­comes, or whether prior ther­a­pies affect treat­ment out­comes.

Ninlaro (ixazomib) features heavily in the set of this year's “follow-up” poster presentation. There are a total of five posters related to Ninlaro (ixazomib) – many more posters than there are focused on any other specific drug.

There also are posters with “follow-up” results for Pomalyst (poma­lido­mide, Imnovid), Kyprolis (car­filz­o­mib), Empliciti (elotuzumab), and Farydak (panobinostat). Interestingly enough, there are no posters of this sort for Darzalex (dara­tu­mu­mab). In fact, there is not a single poster related to Darzalex that presents new research results.

Fourth, another reason for the greater number of poster presentations this year is an expanded set of research on “real life” treat­ment patterns, out­comes, and costs. These posters seem to focus, in particular, on treat­ment at first or second relapse.

Fifth, there are more poster presentations this year than last year looking at poten­tial markers of a patient's prognosis, such as circulating plasma cell levels, PET/CT imaging, cystatin-c, or free light chain levels at relapse.

Last but certainly not least, there is a pair of interesting poster presentations about smol­der­ing multiple myeloma (#8015 and #8035). These two posters, com­bined with the two oral presentations on the same topic (#8003 and #8004), suggest there is growing interest among researchers in the smol­der­ing stage of multiple myeloma.

We wrap up today's report with our list of ASCO poster presentations “of note”. These are not, by any means, the only interesting poster presentations in our list of all myeloma-related posters at ASCO 2016. It is simply a list of posters that we definitely will be looking at, and which we feel researchers and physicians also will be reviewing in detail.

ASCO 2016 Multiple Myeloma Poster Presentations Of Note

• 8012 - MOR202 alone and in combination with pomalidomide or lenalidomide in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma: Data from clinically relevant cohorts from a phase I/IIa study - Marc S. Raab (abstract)
• 8013 - Phase I trial of the combination of selinexor (SEL), liposomal doxorubicin (DOX) and dexamethasone (Dex) for relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) - Rachid C. Baz (abstract)
• 8014 - Phase 1b study of panobinostat in combination with lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone in relapsed refractory multiple myeloma - Jacob Laubach (abstract)
• 8015 - Quantification of circulating clonal plasma cells (cPCs) via multiparametric flow cytometry (MFC) to identify patients with smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM) at high risk of progression - Wilson I. Gonsalves (abstract)
• 8018 - Efficacy and safety of ixazomib plus lenalidomide-dexamethasone (IRd) vs placebo-rd in patients (pts) with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) by cytogenetic risk status in the global phase III Tourmaline-MM1 study - Paul G. Richardson (abstract)
• 8031 - Adverse event (AE) management in patients (pts) with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) taking pomalidomide (POM) plus low dose-dexamethasone (LoDEX): A pooled analysis from 3 clinical trials - Philippe Moreau (abstract)
• 8032 - Phase I venetoclax monotherapy for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma - Shaji Kumar (abstract)
• 8035 - Prevalence and survival of smoldering multiple myeloma in the US: Analysis using a national dataset - Aishwarya Ravindran (abstract)
• 8037 - ELOQUENT-2 update: Phase III study of elotuzumab plus lenalidomide/dexamethasone (ELd) vs Ld in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM)—Identifying responders by subset analysis - Sagar Lonial (abstract)
• 8039 - Impact of prior therapy on efficacy and safety of oral ixazomib-lenalidomide-dexamethasone (IRd) vs placebo-Rd in patients (pts) with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) in TOURMALINE-MM - María-Victoria Mateos (abstract)
• 8045 - Carfilzomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (KRd) vs lenalidomide and dexamethasone (Rd) in patients with relapsed multiple myeloma (RMM) and early progression during prior therapy: Secondary analysis from the phase 3 study ASPIRE (NCT01080391) - Heinz Ludwig (abstract)