Dr. Kenneth Anderson is a multiple myeloma thought leader, physician and researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he is Director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center.  He also is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Dr. Anderson's research has played a key role in the development of several new multiple myeloma drugs and, more broadly, the significant improvement in treatment outcomes for myeloma patients that has occurred over the past 10 to 15 years.

In an interview with The Myeloma Beacon, Dr. Anderson spoke about his approach to treating …

Having multiple myeloma isn't simple – It's hard! Not only do you have cancer, but you also have a dizzying array of treatment options available to you. Additionally, it doesn’t just affect your health–it can affect just about all aspects of your life.

First, you and your caregiver need to decide where to go for treatment. Do you travel across state lines to a large, regional or national cancer center that specializes in treating myeloma? Or do you pick a medical center closer to home?

What about insurance? Cost …

Dr. Robert Kyle, a leading myeloma physician, researcher, and professor at the Mayo Clinic, spoke with The Myeloma Beacon about his approach to treating multiple myeloma patients; participation in clinical trials; many of the key issues for myeloma patients and physicians, including conventional and alternative treatment options; and the future of personalized medicine.

This article is the second part of a two-part series based on the Beacon’s conversations with Dr. Kyle. It will cover the role of clinical trials and key issues in the treatment of multiple myeloma as well as promising …

Dr. Robert Kyle is a multiple myeloma key opinion leader, physician, researcher, and professor at the Mayo Clinic. Dr. Kyle has dedicated his life to caring for multiple myeloma patients and studying the disease.

His work in myeloma began with his residency at the Mayo Clinic in the late 1950s, where he measured monoclonal protein levels in more than 6,500 myeloma and non-myeloma patients to identify a spike characteristic of multiple myeloma. He has authored more than 850 research papers and won lifetime achievement awards from the International Myeloma Foundation and the …

Celgene Corporation, the manufacturer of Revlimid (lenalidomide), announced on Monday that the company plans to file for approval of Revlimid as a treatment for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. Celgene intends to file for regulatory approval in the United States and Europe in the second half of this year.

“Our objective is to make sure that the patients who have a fatal disease, a currently incurable disease, can take medicines that turn this into a chronic treatable disease,” said Celgene’s President and CEO Sol Barer during the announcement. “That is the mission …

A study recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology suggests that thalidomide (Thalomid), used in conjunction with double autologous stem cell transplants, leads to better outcome in younger patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

Autologous stem cell transplants use stem cells collected from the patient’s own bone marrow rather than from a donor. In a double transplant treatment, two transplants are given to the patient within a six-month period.

The study authors retrospectively analyzed the data of 135 patients who received thalidomide until their second stem cell transplant and …

In a recent study published in the journal Blood, researchers reviewed pre­vi­ously reported research and found a general correlation between “complete response” to ther­apy and survival for multiple myeloma patients.

Complete response, which is defined as a normal bone marrow evaluation and a negative immuno­fix­a­tion (a test to detect ab­nor­mal anti­bodies in the blood or urine), has been correlated to patient out­come for many blood cancers. However, conventional chemotherapy has rarely produced com­plete responses in myeloma patients.

The sig­nif­i­cance of a com­plete response to myeloma treat­ment was not important until the introduction …