Results of a small Phase 2 trial conducted in Switzerland indicate that the HIV treat­ment nelfinavir, in com­bi­na­tion with Velcade and dexa­meth­a­sone, has promising activity in patients with ad­vanced, Velcade-resistant multiple myeloma.

All 34 patients in the Swiss trial had pre­vi­ously been treated with, and stopped responding to, Velcade. All study par­tic­i­pants also were pre­vi­ously treated with Revlimid (lena­lido­mide) and had a median of five over­all prior lines of treat­ment.

In this heavily pre­treated patient group, the com­bi­na­tion of nelfinavir, Velcade, and dexa­meth­a­sone nevertheless achieved at least a partial response …

Results of a recent Phase 2 clin­i­cal trial in Denmark raise questions about the future role of the antibiotic clarithro­mycin (Biaxin) in the treat­ment of multiple myeloma.

Previous research has suggested that adding clarithromycin to standard myeloma treat­ment regi­mens could im­prove treat­ment efficacy without a sig­nif­i­cant increase in side effects.

As a result, clarithromycin-containing regi­mens such as “BiRd” (Biaxin, Revlimid, and dexa­meth­a­sone) have been employed by some myeloma specialists to treat both newly diag­nosed and re­lapsed patients.

The recent Danish trial, however, found that adding clarithromycin to the com­bi­na­tion of …

Results of a study conducted in Switzerland indicate that selective digestive decontamination, a controversial strategy designed to reduce the risk of in­fec­tions, may be effective in myeloma patients undergoing au­tol­o­gous (own) stem cell trans­plan­ta­tion.

The authors of the new study retro­spec­tive­ly reviewed data for over 200 myeloma patients who underwent an inpatient stem cell trans­plant at two hos­pi­tals in Zurich, Switzerland, be­tween 2009 and 2015. About half the patients underwent selective digestive decontamination (SDD) during their trans­plants, while the other half did not.

The patients who underwent SDD were sig­nif­i­cantly …