Seven months ago, after hav­ing smol­der­ing myeloma for 10 years, I crossed over into the ‘active’ dis­ease category. Thankfully, there was no dramatic myeloma defining event, just a painful bone mar­row biopsy that showed 60 per­cent plasma cells. How long I have been at 60 per­cent, I have no idea, which makes the de­ci­sion to proceed with treat­ment a dif­fi­cult one for me.

Back in March, when Covid-19 was start­ing to grip my region, my doctor agreed that it would be prudent to hold off on treat­ment, as Seattle was in the …

I was diag­nosed with smol­der­ing myeloma in 2010 when my chil­dren were 7 and 10 years old. Three years prior, their Dad drowned after being ejected from his surf ski, a spe­cial­ized lightweight kayak.

I’ll never forget sharing the news of his accident with my chil­dren. Their Dad was in a coma in the intensive care unit. They were so young, it was such a shock, and they came up with what I thought were very sophisticated ques­tions. “Is he going to die?” my eldest asked. “Most likely,” I replied. “No, what …

Summit, NJ (Press Release) – Celgene Corpo­ra­tion (NASDAQ: CELG) today announced results from an open-label phase II/III National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) study led by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group and sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. REVLIMID® (lena­lido­mide) was provided by Celgene under a clin­i­cal trials agree­ment with the NCI’s Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis.

ECOG E3A06 is a ran­dom­ized study eval­u­ating the safety and efficacy of the inves­ti­ga­tional use of REVLIMID mono­therapy versus observation in patients with asymptomatic smol­der­ing multiple myeloma. …

We live in a world today where everything is “on-demand.” We have television apps that show movies anytime we want to see them. We carry hand-held computers that can answer our every query while making an overseas call. Services exist to deliver anything we want at any hour, and we can even pay our bills while in the comfort of our living rooms.

Amidst all this “on-demand” life, it’s difficult for people to understand why they can’t do more for my husband Daniel’s smoldering myeloma. Well-meaning people look at me quizzically as …

The main mul­ti­ple myeloma-related poster session at this year's Amer­i­can Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago took place last Monday. Several of the posters pre­sented during that session focused on poten­tial new mul­ti­ple myeloma ther­a­pies. Those posters were reviewed in the Beacon's previous ASCO mul­ti­ple myeloma up­date.

In this, the Beacon's final ASCO 2016 up­date, the attention shifts to posters from the Monday session that were re­lated to existing myeloma ther­a­pies, as well as a pair of posters re­lated to smol­der­ing mul­ti­ple myeloma.

The posters about existing ther­a­pies …

This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting began the morning of last Friday, and the meeting will run through Tues­day.

Multiple myeloma-related pre­sen­ta­tions are taking place every day of the meeting. Friday, how­ever, was the busiest day at the meeting in terms of oral pre­sen­ta­tions with new myeloma-related re­search. There were nine such pre­sen­ta­tions during a single afternoon session focused on multiple myeloma.

In addi­tion, there were myeloma-related education session pre­sen­ta­tions on Saturday, yesterday, and today. There also was a late-breaking ab­stract session yesterday (Sunday) with one pre­sen­ta­tion that …

We tried, myeloma world, but we couldn't come up with a short title for today's report.

There were just too many words needed to describe the three research articles that we plan to review with you in this edition of Myeloma Morning.

First, we have an important new study out of Spain that in­ves­ti­gates the sig­nif­i­cance of Bence Jones protein in smol­der­ing multiple myeloma patients.

Next, we turn to a study by researchers in Japan. They in­ves­ti­gate different methods for measuring a person's bone marrow plasma cell per­cent­ages, and how those methods can …