We hope you had a pleasant Wednesday, myeloma world.

Our Wednesday was going full steam ahead until modern tech­nology at Myeloma Morning Headquarters decided to take a vaca­tion. And this had to hap­pen, of course, on a day when we have some particularly in­ter­est­ing devel­op­ments to discuss.

What “developments” might those be, you ask?

Well, those “developments” would be the titles of all pre­sen­ta­tions to be given at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). The titles were made public on Wednesday.

In this edition of

Have you ever really thought about the differences between symptomatic myeloma and smoldering myeloma?

If you ask newly diagnosed patients about their symptomatic myeloma, you’ll likely hear stories with common themes – like “we’re hitting the myeloma hard,” and how the treatment was scheduled with a sense of urgency. This type of myeloma usually has patients and their specialists leaping into action in hopes of bringing a quick and lasting remission. Of course, symptomatic multiple myeloma is an active disease with serious symptoms and repercussions, and it calls for an immediate response.

That’s …

Good morning, myeloma world.

We hope this Sunday edition of Myeloma Morning finds you rested and ready to do some quick myeloma-related catching up.

We always enjoy reporting on potential new myeloma ther­a­pies, so we thought we'd start today's update with a look at a new study by Korean researchers work­ing at LG Life Sciences. The researchers report results of preclinical (laboratory) tests they have carried out on two drugs, codenamed LC53-0110 and LC53-0151 (full text: html, pdf). Both of these drugs are in the same class of ther­a­pies – …

Good morning, myeloma world.

We hope your weekend has gotten off to a good start. We've been looking over the latest myeloma-related research since the last edition of Myeloma Morning, and it appears we have just a short list of new material to discuss today.

In fact, we will be focusing today on just two new research articles.

The first is from a team of U.S. researchers, most of whom are based at the Uni­versity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). The study looks at a novel way of …

When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2005, my specialist told me that my disease fell into the category of smoldering myeloma.

This meant that, while I had abnormal myeloma cells in my bone marrow and abnormal protein in my blood, the myeloma wasn’t yet harming me. I didn’t have any other symptoms, such as anemia, bone damage, or kid­ney involvement. I’d have my blood tested every few months, but I didn’t need any treatment.

My first reaction to the smoldering diagnosis was one of intense relief. After a month of …

• First study of dara­tu­mu­mab in smoldering multiple myeloma
• Study expected to start in  2015

Copenhagen, Denmark (Press Release) - Genmab A/S (OMX: GEN) announced today that its col­lab­o­ra­tion partner, Janssen Biotech, Inc. (Janssen) plans to start a Phase II study of dara­tu­mu­mab in smol­der­ing multiple myeloma.  The study (SMM2001) will eval­u­ate three dif­fer­en­t dose schedules of dara­tu­mu­mab for the treat­ment of smol­der­ing multiple myeloma.  The study is ex­pec­ted to start enrolling patients in 2015.

"We are pleased to announce this study, which illustrates that the devel­op­ment plan for dara­tu­mu­mab encompasses all stages of multiple myeloma. …

The International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) has issued updated criteria for the diagnosis of multiple myeloma.

The criteria have been published in The Lancet Oncology and are ac­com­panied by recommendations for monitoring and updated criteria for other related plasma cell disorders.

The new diagnostic criteria represent a paradigm shift in the approach to multiple myeloma and will have considerable impact on the management of the disease.

For decades, the diagnosis of multiple myeloma required the presence of “end-organ” damage that could be attributed to the underlying plasma cell disorder. Thus, in order …