Friday was the last day of the International Myeloma Workshop (IMW) in Paris.  The agenda for the day was briefer than the previous days of the conference.  Talks ran from the early morning through mid-afternoon.

The morning began with a session in which myeloma specialists presented consensus reports on vaccination and infection prevention, the management of anemia, blood clots in deep veins, and bone disease.  The Myeloma Beacon will be covering these reports in more detail over the next few weeks.

Throughout the rest of the morning, researchers presented results from ongoing …

Results of a recent study conducted by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, indicate that pomalidomide (Pomalyst) may be effective in patients who develop extramedullary disease during treatment with thalidomide, Revlimid, or Velcade.

However, the results also showed these patients had shorter overall survival times than patients who did not develop extramedullary disease during treatment.

The study authors indicated that further studies are required to determine whether novel drugs directly increase the likelihood of developing extramedullary disease.

“We don't know if we are seeing [the development of extramedullary …

As survival increases among multiple myeloma patients and as detection methods improve, a higher rate of plasma cell tumors are being detected outside the bone marrow of these patients, a new study published in the Annals of Oncology suggests. The authors also concluded that the increase is not caused by high-dose therapy or novel therapeutic agents.

Non-marrow tumors, also known as extramedullary disease, occur when plasma cell tumors develop outside of the bone marrow in soft tissue or organs.

Coinciding with the use of high-dose therapy and targeted drugs such as