Myeloma researchers and physicians gathered at the 2011 International Myeloma Workshop (IMW) earlier this month to discuss the current under­standing of the biology and treatment of multiple myeloma.

Highlights from each day of the workshop were covered in the Beacon’s daily updates from the meeting.

Now that the IMW has ended, however, and there has been some time to digest all that happened, it seems like a good time to ask: What were the key themes and learnings from the conference?

To answer this question, The Beacon went back and reviewed its coverage of the IMW, and …

The third day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2010 annual meeting in Chicago was tailor-made for morn­ing people interested in mul­ti­ple myeloma.  The key myeloma-related activity on Sunday, June 6 was a morn­ing abstract session start­ing at 9:30 a.m.  Nine abstracts were pre­sented and discussed over the course of three hours.

The first two pre­sen­ta­tions dealt with Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib)-related re­search.

Dr. Antonio Palumbo of the Uni­ver­sity of Turin pre­sented the re­­sults of the first study.  It com­pared two regi­mens for the treat­ment of newly diag­nosed elderly myeloma patients.  The first regi­men in­volved …

Tests for genetic material circulating in the bloodstream could soon help predict, diagnose, and monitor a multitude of different disorders, including multiple myeloma. The science remains in the research stages, but the technology appears promising and companies have begun investments into commercial applications.

DNA – our genetic “blueprint” – resides within the body’s cells, not only dictating our fetal development in the womb but also choreographing our cellular functioning throughout life. Scientists have discovered, however, that snippets of DNA and its genetic sister, RNA, also freely float throughout our …