Results of a recent British study in­di­cate that the rel­a­tive­ importance of factors affecting sur­vival in multiple myeloma patients changes with patient age.

In particular, the re­searchers found that the older a patient is at diag­nosis, the more their sur­vival is affected by their general health and by how ad­vanced their multiple myeloma is at diag­nosis.

In contrast, the impact of high-risk chromosomal ab­nor­mal­i­ties on sur­vival de­creases with patient age.

The study findings are based on an analysis of data for almost 4,000 newly diag­nosed multiple myeloma patients who par­tic­i­pated in the …

Results of a recent retro­spec­tive­ study show that radiation ther­apy shortly before, or shortly after, the start of drug-based treat­ment in newly diag­nosed multiple myeloma patients is asso­ci­ated with lower over­all survival.

The results are based on in­for­ma­tion for 78,095 multiple myeloma patients from the United States whose data were reported to the National Cancer Data Base be­tween 2004 and 2015.

For their retro­spec­tive­ analysis, the authors of the new study divided the 78,095 patients in their sample into two groups.

One group in­cluded the patients who were found to have undergone …

Results of a retro­spec­tive­ study conducted at the Mayo Clinic indicate that multiple myeloma patients who respond more gradually to their initial treat­ment may have better over­all survival.

Specifically, the authors of the new study find that newly diag­nosed patients who required more than 120 days to achieve their best response to initial treat­ment had better pro­gres­sion-free and over­all survival than patients who achieved their best response in 120 days or less.

The five-year survival rate was 77 per­cent for patients who achieved their best response to initial treat­ment in more than …

Updated multiple myeloma survival statistics for the United States were made public yesterday. The new data show little change in five-year survival compared to statistics released last year. This short-term plateau in myeloma survival stands in contrast to the sizable increases in survival seen in last year's update and the one in 2016.

The newly released statistics also show little change in how survival varies across myeloma patients based on their age, race, or gender. Age con­tin­ues to have a significant effect on survival chances, with younger patients ex­periencing much higher …

It's good to see you again, myeloma world.

We got tied up the past couple days with, among other things, coverage of the Empliciti approval in Europe. But we're glad to be back and we have two new research studies that we'd like to discuss with you.

First, we take a look at an Israeli study that does a deep dive into the t(11;14) chro­mosomal abnormality in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients. The focus of this particular deep dive is the impact other chro­mosomal abnormalities have on the prognosis of newly …

Hello, myeloma world. It's too late to wish you a good morning, but we do hope you had a nice day.

We were right on the mark yesterday when we worried about a “tidal wave” of new myeloma-related research hitting sometime soon. The wave has hit. Today's list of new research studies – see the bottom of this article – may be longer than it's ever been.

Processing that list has taken quite a bit of time, and we won't even try to cover all of the studies in today's report. Instead, …

Results of a recent retrospective study conducted at the Mayo Clinic in­di­cate that the survival of patients with non­se­cre­tory multiple myeloma has improved over the last decade.

Nonse­cre­tory multiple myeloma is a rare form of myeloma in which a patient’s disease cannot be diagnosed or tracked by the presence of monoclonal protein in the blood or urine.  This is not the case for most myeloma patients, who have “se­cre­tory” disease which can be tracked using lab results such as a patient’s “M-spike” or free light chain levels.

The authors of the new …