A happy Sunday to you, myeloma world.

We hope you have been having a pleasant weekend. We've been looking over some of the new multiple myeloma research published in the past few days, and there are two studies we thought we would discuss with you in today's Myeloma Morning.

The first is a case report involving a myeloma patient who has been in remission for more than 15 years. This remission, it seems, may be an unexpected “side effect” of radiation treatment the patient received.

The second study we'll …

Monday was the third day of this year’s meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH).  The day was filled with oral presentation sessions from early in the morning until into the evening.

In the afternoon and early evening, there were six oral presentation sessions devoted solely to multiple myeloma and a number of other myeloma-related presentations scattered about the afternoon.  The topics of these presentations ranged from the biology of myeloma to treat­ment options for newly diag­nosed, re­lapsed and refractory, and older patients.

This ASH update highlights most of the oral …

Results from a small Australian study provide new evidence that the immune systems of myeloma patients may play an important role in why some patients survive much longer than others.

In particular, the Australian researchers found that myeloma patients who live for more than 10 years after diagnosis have more robust immune function as compared to other myeloma patients.

Certain killer immune cells were more common, and divided more read­i­ly, in long-term myeloma survivors than in patients with shorter sur­vival.

The investigators also found that long-term survivors had more helper cells (which promote …

Spanish researchers recently developed a new model based on a technique called multiparameter flow cytometry that can identify newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients with disease profiles similar to those of patients with the myeloma precursor disease monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance.

The set of myeloma patients identified as having disease similar to monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) had better disease status at diagnosis and better long-term survival than other newly diagnosed myeloma patients, regardless of the depth of their response to treatment.

In addition, the model was able to identify MGUS …

Results from a recent French study identified several factors that predict long-term survival of patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma. These prognostic factors include the absence of three key chromosomal abnormalities, low beta-2 microglobulin levels in the blood, and younger age.

The three key chromosomal abnormalities that were absent in patients who survived longer were a gain in chromosome 1 (called 1q gain), a translocation from chromosome 4 to 14 (called t(4;14)), and a deletion in chromosome 17 (called del(17p)). Patients who lived longer were also younger than 55 years of age …

A recent study reported that long-term surviving myeloma patients are generally younger and have received and responded well to treatment with conventional chemotherapy. Dr. M. Kraj of the Institute of Hematology and Transfusion Medicine in Warsaw, Poland, presented the findings at the European Hematology Association (EHA) meeting in Barcelona last month.

Dr. Kraj and her colleagues aimed to identify common clinical and laboratory features in long-term surviving myeloma patients, as these may assist physicians in determining an accurate prognosis for other patients.

The researchers analyzed data of 600 myeloma patients diagnosed before …