I know it's been less than two months since I wrote another column with the word ‘wait’ in the title, but it seems to be a re­cur­ring theme for me.

I was officially diag­nosed with smol­der­ing myeloma 10 years ago this month, and I have been in watch-and-wait mode since then. My original hematologist offloaded most of her patients last fall, and I was assigned a new doctor.

Predictably, but nothing I had actually antic­i­pated, the new doctor wanted to know what …

We tried, myeloma world, but we couldn't come up with a short title for today's report.

There were just too many words needed to describe the three research articles that we plan to review with you in this edition of Myeloma Morning.

First, we have an important new study out of Spain that in­ves­ti­gates the sig­nif­i­cance of Bence Jones protein in smol­der­ing multiple myeloma patients.

Next, we turn to a study by researchers in Japan. They in­ves­ti­gate different methods for measuring a person's bone marrow plasma cell per­cent­ages, and how those methods can …

Results from a recent Italian study confirm that smoldering myeloma patients with at least 60 percent of the cells in their bone marrow being plasma cells are 5.6 times more likely than others to progress to symptomatic multiple myeloma.

In addition, the findings indicate that bone marrow aspiration may be a better tool than bone marrow biopsy for predicting rapid progression from smoldering to active myeloma.

The study investigators suggest that smoldering myeloma patients with at least 60 percent plasma cells should be treated soon after diagnosis.

However, Dr. Ola Landgren from …