This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, which is being held in Chicago, began on Friday and goes through tomorrow. How­ever, to­day is the last day with any myeloma-related sessions.

Several myeloma-related oral pre­sen­ta­tions were given this morn­ing and were summarized in an up­date pub­lished earlier to­day (see re­lated Beacon news).

This afternoon featured a poster session in which im­por­tant new re­search findings were summarized on posters throughout a large conference hall.

The stud­ies pre­sented this afternoon were on a wide variety of myeloma-related topics ranging from new treat­ments …

Today was the third day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, and the morning was filled with oral presentations about important myeloma-related studies.  Most of the talks were about potential new anti-myeloma drugs.

This update summarizes the presentations about panobinostat (Farydak), obatoclax, Treanda (bendamustine), and MLN9708 (ixazomib), which are all being developed as potential multiple myeloma treat­ments.  In addi­tion, the update includes a recap of a presenta­tion about the safety of long-term bis­phos­pho­nate use.

An

The 48th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) will take place Friday, June 1, through Tuesday, June 5, in Chicago.

More than 25,000 clin­i­cal spe­cialists from all over the world are ex­pec­ted to attend the five-day meeting to discuss the cur­rent re­search in cancer treat­ment and care. The theme for this year’s meeting is “Collaborating to Conquer Cancer.”

The meeting will in­clude many pre­sen­ta­tions and seminars focused spe­cif­i­cally on mul­ti­ple myeloma. The ASCO website cur­rently lists nearly 50 myeloma-based pre­sen­ta­tions (included under “lymphoma and plasma cell disorders”).

The …

Interim results from a Phase 2 study show that panobinostat may be clinically beneficial for certain multiple myeloma patients with advanced disease.

In the study, patients who had relapsed and were no longer responsive to Velcade-based treatments received panobinostat in combination with Velcade and dexamethasone.

Although the results generally are being viewed as favorable, “It is hard to interpret them because you don’t really know how the patients would have done with just Velcade and dexamethasone alone,” explained Dr. Leif Bergsagel, a myeloma specialist from the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, in a …

As the third day of the 2011 American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting came to an end, attendees could look back on an agenda that featured presentations about a wide range of potential new myeloma ther­a­pies.

The afternoon myeloma sessions were focused, in fact, on potential new ther­a­pies.

The Beacon's pre­vi­ous ASH 2011 update covered the afternoon presentations about carfilzomib and pomalidomide, two potential myeloma ther­a­pies that are in the late stages of devel­op­ment.

This update covers the afternoon's presentations about four other potential new myeloma ther­a­pies -- MLN9708, panobinostat, …

Earlier this year, an inter­na­tional group of myeloma experts pub­lished a review of ongoing re­search into new myeloma treat­ments.  This review not only described a wide range of po­ten­tial new myeloma treat­ments, but also in­cluded the experts' thoughts on where re­search into new treat­ments should go in the future.

Given the recent new drug appli­ca­tion for car­filz­o­mib and the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy -- which undoubtedly will host dis­cus­sions of many po­ten­tial new myeloma treat­ments -- it seems an appro­pri­ate time to go back to the experts' review from …