A team of European researchers recently found that advanced age, kidney failure, infections, heart and gastrointestinal complications, and drug discontinuation are associated with poor survival among elderly myeloma patients.

The results are from a combined analysis of data from four major Euro­pean clinical trials.  All the trials involved elderly multiple myeloma patients treated with either conventional anti-myeloma agents or combi­na­tions of conventional and novel agents.

The study also found that intensive anti-myeloma treatment regimens – that is, regimens combining conventional agents with more than one novel agent – may be counterproductive in …

We continue to report the latest myeloma-related findings from this year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting, which has come to a close in Atlanta.  Yesterday was the third day of the meeting and featured the most myeloma-related presentations in a given day.

Yesterday, there were nearly 50 myeloma-related talks given during 11 oral presentation sessions.  The Beacon will therefore summarize presentations from the four most important sessions in updates such as this one.

This update covers presentations from the third of the four key oral presentation sessions. Updates published yesterday …

Italian researchers have developed a vulnerability score to better assess survival in multiple myeloma patients. The score is based on the patient’s overall health and the presence of other diseases.

The investigators found that a high vulnerability score was associated with shorter overall survival in all patients, regardless of the patient’s age.

Based on their findings, the investigators recommend that the score be investigated further in larger prospective studies. If its usefulness is confirmed in these studies, the score could be used to personalize treatment for myeloma.

According to the Italian researchers, …

Getting a multiple myeloma diagnosis just stuns you.

That is, once you figure out what it is and what it means.

I’d guess that most people who are confronted with the news probably have never heard of myeloma.  I can say that I’d heard of it, but knew absolutely nothing about it.  I wasn’t even sure it was cancer.

Two things about myeloma stuck in my mind in the aftermath of my diagnosis in 2006: Incurable. Almost invariably fatal.

It didn’t take me long then to come to my senses.

When you’re told you …

One of the first questions most of us probably ask after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma is "How long do I have?", or some derivative thereof.  For me, I think the question came right after asking what multiple myeloma is, and whether it's curable.

Perhaps it might be better to take a more philosophical approach and respond by asking "How long does anyone have?", reflecting the fact that life is a crap shoot, stuff happens, and we truly don't know when we will die.

After all, barring any knowledge of the unforeseen, …

Follow-up results from a long-term study conducted in Italy indicate that quality of response may be the most significant predictor of long-term survival in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients receiving a stem cell transplant.

The results also showed that hemoglobin levels and platelet counts at diagnosis were independent factors predicting for long-term survival.

“[This study] confirms the importance of achieving high-quality responses not only as a surrogate marker of progression-free survival and overall survival but also for long-term overall survival,” said Dr. Elena Zamagni, one of study’s investigators from Seragnoli Institute of …

Results from a recent French study identified several factors that predict long-term survival of patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma. These prognostic factors include the absence of three key chromosomal abnormalities, low beta-2 microglobulin levels in the blood, and younger age.

The three key chromosomal abnormalities that were absent in patients who survived longer were a gain in chromosome 1 (called 1q gain), a translocation from chromosome 4 to 14 (called t(4;14)), and a deletion in chromosome 17 (called del(17p)). Patients who lived longer were also younger than 55 years of age …