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 …

Once-weekly high-dose Kyprolis led to higher response rates and longer remissions in re­lapsed / refractory myeloma patients than twice-weekly, lower-dose Kyprolis (car­filz­o­mib), interim results of the Phase 3 "ARROW" clinical trial show.

Dr. Maria-Victoria Mateos presented the trial results earlier this month at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago, and also last weekend at the 2018 congress of the European Hematology Association, held in Stockholm. In addi­tion, the trial results were recently published in a medical journal (reference).

The over­all response rate to …

In the midst of the annual late May / early June medical conference season, with the many presentations of results from large-scale clin­i­cal trials, it is perhaps refreshing to learn that small-scale research has uncovered a pre­vi­ously unexplored poten­tial myeloma ther­apy.

In particular, physicians in New Zealand have found signs that roxi­thro­mycin, an antibiotic first used more than 30 years ago, may have anti-myeloma activity. The physicians shared their finding in a case report pub­lished last month.

In their report, the physicians describe the case of an 86-year-old man who …

Updated re­­sults of a Phase 1 trial testing bb2121 in re­lapsed mul­ti­ple myeloma patients were pre­sented last Friday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting. bb2121 is a poten­tial new myeloma treat­ment in the chi­meric an­ti­gen re­cep­tor (CAR) T-cell class of ther­a­pies.

The re­­sults pre­sented at this year's ASCO meeting con­firm pre­vi­ous findings in­di­cating bb2121 has sub­stan­tial anti-myeloma ac­­tiv­ity.

At some of the higher doses of bb2121 tested during the trial, for example, nearly every patient treated with the drug responded to it; the over­all re­sponse rate …

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

Multiple myeloma-related pre­sen­ta­tions have been taking place every day of the meeting. The main myeloma-related oral pre­sen­ta­tion session of the meeting, how­ever, took place on Friday. Research summarized during oral pre­sen­ta­tion sessions usually is par­tic­u­larly im­por­tant, either because the subject itself is im­por­tant, or because the results are based on sub­stan­tial amounts of evi­dence (for example, a sizable clin­i­cal trial).

Given the poten­tial importance of the re­search results pre­sented last Friday, The …