This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting began yester­day morning in Chicago and will run through Tuesday.

Myeloma-related pre­sen­ta­tions were made during two sessions yes­ter­day.

One session was designed to better educate physicians about per­son­al­ized ther­apy for elderly patients with lymphoid malig­nan­cies. During that session, Dr. Tanya Marya Wildes from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis talked about how to navigate treat­ment options for older multiple myeloma patients.

The key myeloma-related re­search pre­sented yesterday was made public during a poster session in the afternoon about studies …

The Beacon con­tinues today with its ‘ASH preview’ series about mye­lo­ma re­search that will be pre­sented at the American Society of Hema­tol­o­gy (ASH) meet­ing in early December.

Abstracts for the ASH presentations are now avail­able, although many con­tain pre­lim­i­nary in­­for­ma­tion that will be updated at the meet­ing.

The Beacon’s ASH preview articles are in­tended to highlight the meet­ing's most in­ter­est­ing myeloma-related studies.

The first and second previews, published earlier this week and last week, provide an overview of ASH abstracts about the newest poten­tial mye­lo­ma ther­a­pies just starting out in clin­i­cal trials.  Further previews will …

Results of a recent international Phase 3 study demonstrate that the addi­tion of Zolinza to Velcade increases response rates and slightly im­proves progression-free survival in relapsed and refractory myeloma patients compared to treatment with Velcade alone.

Specifically, 56 percent of patients responded to treatment with Zolinza (vorin­o­stat) plus Velcade (bortezomib) compared to 41 percent of patients treated with Velcade plus placebo.

However, despite improvements in responses, the difference in pro­gres­sion-free survival between the two treatment groups was small. Treat­ment with Zolinza plus Velcade was associated with a 25-day …

In a recent review article pub­lished in the journal Clinical Cancer Re­search, two myeloma experts from the Dana-Farber Cancer In­sti­tute, Dr. Nikhil Munshi and Dr. Kenneth Anderson, review the latest strategies in the treat­ment of mul­ti­ple myeloma.

In their article, the experts discuss newer ther­a­pies that appear to be promising in clin­i­cal and pre­clin­i­cal stud­ies.

According to the physicians, com­bi­na­tion ther­a­pies that spe­cif­i­cally target a patient’s ge­netic form of the dis­ease will be re­quired for long-term dis­ease con­trol and ultimately a cure.

Some Historical Perspective

In their review article, Drs. Munshi and …

Today is the third day of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 2012 annual meeting in Atlanta, and it is packed full with multiple myeloma-related presentations. Presentations started early in the morning and will con­tinue through the afternoon.

Over the course of today, at least 11 different oral sessions, many of which are being held simultaneously, will include presentations about myeloma-related topics.  The Beacon will summarize presentations from the four most relevant sessions in updates such as this one.  This update, in particular, covers presentations from the first of those four oral …

Treatment strategies that com­bine Revlimid with newer types of anti-tumor agents may be ef­fec­tive for re­lapsed and re­frac­tory mul­ti­ple myeloma, ac­cord­ing to myeloma experts who reviewed re­­sults from stud­ies of these new com­bi­na­tions.

Refractory and re­lapsed mul­ti­ple myeloma is notoriously dif­fi­cult to treat. For every remission period that is achieved, relapse typ­i­cally arises sooner and with greater re­sis­tance to pre­vi­ously used ther­a­pies. These patients have lim­ited op­tions for ther­apy.

In examining trials that tested new ther­a­pies in com­bi­na­tion with Revlimid (lena­lido­mide), the authors of the review hoped to find the po­ten­tial …

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has updated its guide­lines for the treat­ment of multiple myeloma, and the new guidelines will be interpreted by many as a vote of confidence for Revlimid main­te­nance ther­apy.

The NCCN guidelines are followed closely by physicians and by many U.S. health insurance com­pa­nies, which frequently use them when making reim­burse­ment decisions about different cancer treat­ments.

The guidelines are comprised of recommendations based on the results of recent clinical trials and ongoing scientific research.  A panel of specialists within the myeloma field is responsible for updating the …