Each year at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy we hear about dozens of new drugs that are able to annihilate mul­ti­ple myeloma cells in the test tube and in animal models. Unfortunately, at the same meeting, we also sit through pre­sen­ta­tions and walk by posters of drugs that looked hot in the laboratory but then fail to work when given to real patients with myeloma.

This is not new. It has been the story with myeloma for ages. The myeloma cells are smart and are seemingly able to …

Dr. Kenneth Anderson, a world-renowned myeloma spe­cialist, physician and re­searcher at Dana-Farber Cancer In­sti­tute, and Kraft Family Pro­fessor at Harvard Medical School, spoke with The Myeloma Beacon about his ap­proach to treating mul­ti­ple myeloma patients.

This article is the sec­ond part of a two-part series based on The Myeloma Beacon’s interview with Dr. Anderson.  It will cover Dr. Anderson’s thoughts on where myeloma treat­ment is headed in the com­ing years.  For more in­­for­ma­tion on Dr. Anderson’s cur­rent ap­proach to treating mul­ti­ple myeloma, please see part one of this series.

Emerging Therapies …

The re­­sults of three on­go­ing clin­i­cal trials sug­gest that elotuzumab in com­bi­na­tion with either Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib) or Revlimid (lena­lido­mide) plus low-dose dexamethasone (Decadron) is ef­fec­tive and well-tolerated in patients who have re­lapsed or have treat­ment-resistant mul­ti­ple myeloma.

The findings were pre­sented at the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy (ASH) annual meeting in Orlando last week.

Elotuzumab is a new drug being devel­oped by Facet Biotech and Bristol-Myers Squibb as a po­ten­tial treat­ment for mul­ti­ple myeloma. It recog­nizes and binds to unique pro­teins on the surface …

Tuesday was the last day of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy annual meeting in Orlando.  The myeloma portion of the conference concluded with one session of talks in the morn­ing about treat­ments under devel­op­ment.

The first talk was given by Dr. David Siegel of Hackensack Uni­ver­sity Medical Center in New Jersey.  Dr. Siegel pre­sented re­­sults from a study of single-agent carfilzomib in myeloma patients who had re­lapsed mul­ti­ple times and did not respond to their last treat­ment (abstract).

Among the 257 evaluable par­tic­i­pants, 24 per­cent achieved at least a partial …

The American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy meeting swung into full gear yesterday. The day was full of invited talks and a poster session.

The morn­ing kicked off with an education session in which attendees could learn about sev­er­al myeloma-related topics.

The first pre­sen­ta­tion was by Dr. Ola Landgren from the National Cancer In­sti­tute and National In­sti­tutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Landgren spoke about mono­clonal gam­mop­athy of undetermined sig­nif­i­cance (MGUS) and smol­der­ing myeloma, precursor dis­eases of mul­ti­ple myeloma.

A study pub­lished by Dr. Landgren last year showed that all mul­ti­ple myeloma patients have …

Preliminary re­­sults from two on­go­ing clin­i­cal trials sug­gest that elotuzumab in com­bi­na­tion with either Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib) or Revlimid (lena­lido­mide) plus low-dose dexamethasone (Decadron) is ef­fec­tive and well-tolerated in patients who have re­lapsed or are resistant (refractory) to pre­vi­ous myeloma treat­ment. The findings were pre­sented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago.

Elotuzumab is a new drug being devel­oped by Facet Biotech and Bristol-Myers Squibb as a po­ten­tial treat­ment for mul­ti­ple myeloma. It sel­ectively targets pro­teins that are on the surface of …

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 …