Yesterday was the first day of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy (ASH) 2011 annual meeting, which is being held in San Diego.

Although the day featured no oral pre­sen­ta­tions of new myeloma-related re­search, it started with an in­ter­est­ing educational session focused on mul­ti­ple myeloma.

There also were a num­ber of poster pre­sen­ta­tions during the day summarizing im­por­tant new re­search findings.

The educational session in the morn­ing featured three pre­sen­ta­tions by lead­ing myeloma spe­cialists.

Induction Therapy And Maintenance Treatment

The first pre­sen­ta­tion was by Dr. Donna Reece of the Princess Margaret Hospital in …

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 …

Results of a Phase 2 clin­i­cal trial show that elotuzumab in com­bi­na­tion with Revlimid and low-dose dexa­meth­a­sone is safe and ef­fec­tive in re­lapsed / refractory mul­ti­ple myeloma patients.

“Elotuzumab in com­bi­na­tion with Revlimid and low-dose dexa­meth­a­sone has a very high re­sponse rate,” said Dr. Philippe Moreau from the Uni­ver­sity Hospital in Nantes, France, when he pre­sented the findings at the 47^th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) on Sunday.

“[The com­bi­na­tion] seems to be superior to Revlimid plus high-dose dexa­meth­a­sone,” he added.

In a summary talk about po­ten­tial new …

Monday was the fourth day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO 2011) annual meeting in Chicago.  Although the meeting concluded yes­ter­day, Monday was the last day of the meeting that con­tained any myeloma-relevant ma­teri­al.

The morn­ing started with a session recapping highlights of the meeting from Sunday.  Dr. Ivan Borello from the Johns Hopkins Uni­ver­sity School of Medicine was invited to give a 15-minute pre­sen­ta­tion recapping the myeloma highlights (see Part 1 and Part 2 of The Beacon’s Day Three up­date for more in­­for­ma­tion).

The rest of the …

Yesterday was the third day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2011 annual meeting in Chicago, and it was especially packed with pre­sen­ta­tions re­lated to mul­ti­ple myeloma.

There was a morn­ing session where a total of eight re­search abstracts were pre­sented and discussed.  Then, late in the afternoon, there was an education session focused on mul­ti­ple myeloma, with sev­er­al dif­fer­en­t pre­sen­ta­tions.

The pre­sen­ta­tions during the morn­ing session were on three dif­fer­en­t topics: Revlimid (lena­lido­mide) and its po­ten­tial link to sec­ond­ary cancer; myeloma bone dis­ease; and new drugs being devel­oped as po­ten­tial …

The 47th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) will take place Friday, June 3, through Tuesday, June 7, in Chicago.

More than 30,000 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. This year’s meeting will primarily focus on the theme of “Patients, Pathways, Progress.”

The meeting will in­clude many pre­sen­ta­tions and seminars focused spe­cif­i­cally on mul­ti­ple myeloma. The ASCO website cur­rently lists over 40 myeloma-based abstracts.

The Myeloma Beacon will be …

Thursday was the third day of the Inter­na­tional Myeloma Workshop (IMW) in Paris.  There were pre­sen­ta­tions from early morn­ing through the evening.

Some of the highlights from the first part of Day 3 of the conference are summarized in this article.  Highlights from the sec­ond part of the day are summarized in a separate article (see re­lated Beacon news).

Treating Older, Newly Diagnosed Myeloma Patients

The first session of the morn­ing was about treating newly diag­nosed mul­ti­ple myeloma patients over the age of 65 years, spe­cif­i­cally those who are in­eli­gible for …