This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, which began on Friday and goes through Tuesday, is being held in Chicago.

On the first day of the meeting, there was only one talk related to multiple myeloma.  During an afternoon education session, in which current practice and recent research results are reviewed, Dr. Raphael Fonseca from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, spoke about high-risk multiple myeloma.

The second day of the meeting included a morning and an afternoon session in which myeloma researchers presented their findings in the form …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced earlier today that denosumab, which will be marketed by Amgen under the brand name Xgeva, has been approved to help prevent fractures and to slow bone disease in patients with solid tumors. It was not approved at this time for use in patients with multiple myeloma.

“It wasn’t approved [for myeloma] because the Xgeva-treated subset of multiple myeloma patients had more deaths than the control arm,” said Erica Jefferson, a spokesperson for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Xgeva is an antibody that prevents bone …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that it approved Amgen’s Xgeva to help prevent fractures and to slow bone disease in patients with solid tumors that have spread to and caused damage to bone. Xgeva was not approved, however, for multiple myeloma patients with bone damage.

Xgeva is the new brand name given to denosumab when used for the treatment of cancer-related bone disease. Denosumab at lower doses is marketed under the brand name Prolia for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and a high risk of bone fractures. …

The pharmaceutical company Amgen recently announced that its new drug Prolia more effectively prevents bone pain and fractures in patients with advanced bone disease than Zometa. Prolia was noted to have higher efficacy in patients with various types of cancers, including multiple myeloma. The announcement followed the presentation of results from recent Phase 3 trials at the European Society of Medical Oncology Annual Meeting. 

Bone disease is frequently associated with multiple myeloma and can cause bone pain and lead to serious bone complications, such as lesions and fractures, …

The majority of multiple myeloma patients suffer from bone disease, and drugs called bisphosphonates are commonly used to help improve bone health in myeloma patients. Dr. David Roodman of the University of Pittsburgh discussed the current use of bisphosphonates in multiple myeloma during an education session on June 7 at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting.

Treatment of myeloma bone disease is important, since 20 percent of multiple myeloma patients experience a fracture at the time of their myeloma diagnosis, and 60 percent of multiple myeloma patients experience a …

Yesterday was the fourth day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago. Although today is the final day of the meeting, the multiple myeloma-related sessions concluded yesterday.

The day began with a meeting-wide session to review the highlights of the previous day across all cancer types. There were six presentations, and despite all of the types of cancers being discussed at the meeting, an entire presentation was devoted to myeloma.

Dr. Jean-Luc Harousseau from the Rene Gauducheau Cancer Center in France presented the myeloma highlights. He described …