Good morning, myeloma world.

Since the last edition of Myeloma Morning, abstracts for two im­por­tant upcoming medical meetings have been made public: the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, which will take place June 3 through June 7 in Chicago, and the European Hematology Association (EHA) annual congress, which is scheduled for June 9 through June 12 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The publication of the abstracts and the meetings themselves mean that there is going to be a lot of multiple myeloma-related news in the coming weeks. We will do our …

A happy Saturday to you, myeloma world.

We hope your weekend has gotten off to an excellent start.

Today's edition of Myeloma Morning focuses primarily on a study that was included in yesterday's list of new myeloma-related research. The study summarizes trends in allogeneic (donor) stem cell transplantation in Europe over the last two decades.

Although the study focuses on European trends, we believe it should be of interest to Beacon readers regardless where they may be. With the global exchange of information related to multiple myeloma, trends in Europe are not …

Welcome, myeloma world, to the first "Acronym Edition" of Myeloma Morning.

Every major news item in today's report is closely linked with one or more acronyms. Once we realized this – and once we also realized that this will probably happen again in the future – we realized we had to mark the occasion in some special way.

Hence: Acronym Edition.

We have three brief research summaries at the beginning of today's report, followed by an extended Q&A.

The first two research summaries are mainly for readers interested in the biology of …

A happy Saturday to you, myeloma world.

We have some good news to report today. It also is im­por­tant news related to Darzalex (dara­tu­mu­mab).

Some addi­tional clin­i­cal trial results related to Darzalex were made public earlier this week, but they have not received much attention.

The new results show that adding Darzalex to Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib) and dexa­metha­sone sub­stan­tially – some might even say dramatically – extends pro­gres­sion-free survival in re­lapsed multiple myeloma patients.

The new results expand on news announced at the end of March, which we covered in …

Good morning, myeloma world.

We've got a lot of new myeloma-related research to cover today, so we'll get right down to business.

The first two studies we will review are related to autologous (own) stem cell transplantation.

One study looks at whether myeloma cells make their way into the infusion of a patient's own stem cells that a patient gets during the autologous transplant process. The study finds that, in some cases, myeloma cells do make it into the stem cell infusion, and when this happens, it could – again, could – …

January 19 is the anniversary of my stem cell trans­plant. I celebrate the “birthday” of my immune system each year. This year was the 9th such celebration, which seems fairly amazing to me.

Before my trans­plant, I had read about a survivor who was hoping to get two or three years of remission from his trans­plant. His account really set my ex­pec­ta­tions. Of course, I now realize that things are not that pre­dict­able with myeloma: some people do better, some worse.

I was really lucky, getting seven years without treat­ment after my …

The 51st annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) started earlier to­day, May 29, and will go through June 2 in Chicago.

Approximately 30,000 physicians and re­searchers from all over the world are ex­pec­ted to attend the five-day meeting to discuss cur­rent re­search in cancer treat­ment and care.

During the meeting, there will be pre­sen­ta­tions about all types of cancer, in­clud­ing many pre­sen­ta­tions focused spe­cif­i­cally on mul­ti­ple myeloma. In fact, more than 90 myeloma-related stud­ies are scheduled to be pre­sented, in one form or another, in con­nec­tion with the …