One of the late breaking sessions at the American Society of Hematology meeting included results from a study looking at a completely new combination – carfilzomib, daratumumab and dexamethasone. The combination looks promising for patients who have become resistant to immunomodulators such as lenalidomide. This is significant because myeloma treatment is typically given with a[...]

At a session of the American Society of Hematology meeting, three prominent myeloma specialists discussed a variety of topics for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma patients.  Cristina Gasparetto, MD, Duke University Medical Center, Peter Voorhees, MD, Levine Cancer Institute and moderator Ravi Vij MD, MBA, Washington University School of Medicine answered key questions that present[...]

Venetoclax is FDA approved for use in certain types of leukemia.  It proved to be useful for some leukemia patients with a chromosome 17 P deletion.  For the past few years, Venetoclax has been the subject of several studies for use in myeloma. But it has been a bumpy road. During testing several patients died[...]

Rafael Fonseca, MD is the Chair of Myeloma at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale and recently shared a Twitter thread (of 26 tweets) that asked the question “What is the Risk Classification of the t(11;14) in multiple myeloma? He then told the story with examples and data of venetoclax – the first drug to show[...]

A session preceding the 61st ASH annual meeting, entitled “Optimizing Clinical Outcomes In Blood Cancers Through Groundbreaking Translational Research” was held where  Ola Landgen, MD, PhD, Chief of the Myeloma service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York was especially relevant for the myeloma community. According to Dr. Landgren, recently, there have been[...]

Many of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) presentations in myeloma included information about daratumumab. We covered some of the findings in an earlier article about the Griffin study and daratumumab with weekly carfilzomib.  Dr. Robert Rifkin joined the Myeloma Crowd at ASH to share a new combination for daratumumab that does NOT include an[...]

There is so much CAR T development happening in myeloma, it’s hard to keep track of it all. One of the sessions discussed relapsed and refractory myeloma strategies and almost all of the discussion centered around CAR T.  Siddhartha Ganguly, MD of the University of Kansas shares the importance of CAR T trials and those[...]

At the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Meeting in Orlando, a group of investigators from several institutions including: Harvard Medical School, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, the University of Rochester, and the University of Michigan presented a prize winning poster entitled Circulating Tumor DNA in[...]

An educational symposium entitled “CAR T-Cell Therapy in Lymphoma, Myeloma, and Leukemia- Clinical Updates and Innovations” was presented preceding the 61st American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting and exposition. This symposium was extremely informative and focused on how CAR T-cell therapy, also known as Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy, kills cancer.  According to David[...]

The importance of the Bone Marrow Microenvironment as a key contributor to the disease process underlying Multiple Myeloma, starting from the early precursor stage of Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance (MGUS) to its active stage is increasingly being appreciated and studied.  In a recent Plasma Cell Disorder Conference in Charlotte, NC, Dr. Ken Anderson said[...]