Silver Spring, MD (Press Release) – Today the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­istra­tion permitted mar­ket­ing of ClonoSEQ assay, a next generation sequencing (NGS)-based test for minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or multiple myeloma. MRD is a measure of the amount of cancer cells remaining in a person’s bone marrow.

“At the FDA, we’re continuing to maximize oppor­tuni­ties for inno­va­tion that can im­prove patient out­comes,” said FDA Com­mis­sioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. “Today’s approval is an im­por­tant step for­ward for patients suffering from ALL and multiple myeloma. Determining whether …

During my 25-year career as a boy’s head basketball coach, I found the most satisfying (and most important) part of coaching was planning and devising game plans. 

Putting my knowledge and experience to test to give my teams the best chance of winning was challenging and time consuming, but also enjoyable and exciting. Equally enjoyable and exciting was making adjustments to the game plan during the course of the game.

At times the game plan worked to perfection. Sometimes, the plan had to be adjusted immediately. With my better teams, the game plans varied …

A pleasant Tuesday to you, myeloma world.

We hope your week has started well. We been away for longer than ex­pec­ted, work­ing through some of the more technical details of the articles we discuss in today's Myeloma Morning.

Most of today's report focuses on two research articles that were published last week. Both articles were published in the journal Blood, and both are valuable contributions to what we know about multiple myeloma. As a result, we devote quite a bit of space to summarizing each of the articles.

Those long summaries mean …

Good morning, myeloma world.

It's been a very chilly morning here at Myeloma Morning Headquarters. After teasing us with summerlike temperatures the past few weeks, Mother Nature has decided she's not done with the part of the thermometer below freezing.

We'll be focusing on two new research studies in today's report.

The first study looks at outcomes of allogeneic (donor) stem cell trans­plan­ta­tion for multiple myeloma. Using outcomes from a single U.S. treatment center, the study authors find that whether or not an allo­geneic trans­plant patient had high-risk disease at diagnosis did …

The annual meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the Euro­pean He­ma­tol­ogy Asso­ci­a­tion (EHA) took place earlier this month. The two meetings were attended by tens of thousands of physi­cians from around the world, and featured a myriad of oral pre­sen­ta­tions, posters, and e-abstracts summarizing the re­­sults of new on­col­ogy- and he­ma­tol­ogy-related re­search.

Included in the re­search pre­sented at the two meetings were more than 200 stud­ies discussing new mul­ti­ple myeloma-related findings.

In addi­tion to the two large meetings held earlier this month, the Inter­na­tion­al Myeloma Work­ing Group (IMWG) …

Saturday was the official first day of the 2014 American Society of Hema­tology (ASH) annual meeting. The day featured a wide range of in­ter­est­ing pre­sen­ta­tions about mul­ti­ple myeloma.

Oral pre­sen­ta­tions about new treat­ments under devel­op­ment were given mid-day and were summarized in a Beacon ASH Daily Update published yes­ter­day morn­ing.

During Saturday evening, a poster session took place where im­por­tant new re­search findings were summarized in posters dis­played throughout two separate large conference halls.

The stud­ies covered a variety of myeloma-related topics, ranging from new treat­ments being devel­oped for myeloma, com­bi­na­tion ther­a­pies …

French researchers earlier this week published updated results of a small Phase 2 clinical trial testing the combination of Revlimid, Velcade, and dexa­metha­sone (RVD) in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma pa­tients.

The researchers found that RVD, when given before and after stem cell trans­plan­ta­tion – and when followed by maintenance therapy with Rev­limid – led to very deep treatment responses and significant survival rates.

The 31 newly diagnosed patients in the French trial initially were treated with three cycles of RVD therapy.  Next, the trial participants underwent autologous (own) stem cell transplants, followed …