According to the results of a recent large Swedish study, patients with the myeloma precursor disease monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance may have a higher risk of developing infections than the general population.

The researchers found that patients with monoclonal gammopathy of unde­termined significance (MGUS) were more than twice as likely as the general population to develop either a bacterial or viral infection.

However, they found infections did not increase an MGUS patient’s risk of progressing to multiple myeloma.

The…

Results of a recent study suggest that high-risk multiple myeloma patients who have chromosomal abnormalities known as trisomies have better survival outcomes than high-risk patients without them.

“Our findings allow us to further trim down the proportion of patients with truly high-risk disease, thus allowing us to concentrate on those patients and improve their outcome,” said Dr. Shaji Kumar of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and lead author of the study.

Based on their results, the researchers recommended a…

A group of myeloma experts from the International Myeloma Working Group recently published a consensus statement on maintenance therapies for myeloma patients.

In their statement, the experts reviewed the main findings from previous clinical trials that investigated the impact of maintenance therapies containing the novel agents thalidomide (Thalomid), Revlimid (lenalidomide), and Velcade (bortezomib).

Maintenance therapy is a prolonged, and often low-dose, form of treatment given to myeloma patients after their initial therapy. The goal of maintenance therapy…

The most recent results of a Spanish Phase 3 clinical trial indicate that Revlimid in combination with dexamethasone delays disease progression in smoldering multiple myeloma patients who have a high risk of developing symptomatic disease.

Specifically, the results showed that high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma patients who received Revlimid plus dexamethasone had a longer time to disease progression and better overall survival than patients who did not receive treatment.

However, the Spanish researchers acknowledged that these results should be confirmed by…

In a recent editorial published in the journal Haematologica, two Spanish myeloma experts, Dr. Jesús San-Miguel and Dr. Maria-Victoria Mateos from the University Hospital of Salamanca, review the progress that has been made in the treatment of multiple myeloma.

More importantly, Drs. San-Miguel and Mateos propose several actions they believe will bring the medical community closer to a cure for myeloma.

These actions include achieving and maintaining the best possible response early in the treatment of the disease, using advanced…