As The Beacon continues its ‘ASH Preview’ series about myeloma re­search that will be presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in early December, this article focuses on novel im­muno­therapy approaches that are being studied in clinical trials.

Abstracts for the ASH presentations are now available, although many contain pre­lim­i­nary information that will be updated at the meet­ing.

The Beacon’s ASH preview articles are intended to highlight the meet­ing’s most interesting myeloma-related studies.

The first several of the preview articles, which were published over the past …

One of The Myeloma Beacon's most popular news stories of 2011 reported on an important new devel­op­ment in the use of gene ther­apy to treat blood cancers.

In particular, the article described promising results from a small study using gene ther­apy to treat patients who have chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and it looked at how those results might translate into new ther­a­pies for multiple myeloma (see related Beacon news).

Since the results of the CLL study were made public last year, follow-up results and addi­tional ongoing studies further indicate …

A promising experimental method for treating ad­vanced leukemia may point the way to important new treat­ment options for multiple myeloma.

“It is very exciting,” said Dr. Leif Bergsagel, a myeloma specialist from the Mayo Clinic in Arizona who was not involved in the study investigating the leukemia treat­ment. “I think this ap­proach could and should be extended to multiple myeloma.”  He pointed out, however, that “It will be several years before myeloma patients will be treated this way.”

In two recently published research articles, scientists from the University of Pennsylvania described initial results of a pilot study they are conducting.  The results …