Multiple myeloma is the most frequent cancer to involve the skeleton, with up to 80 percent of patients having bone disease. Although fewer patients appear to have bone involvement more recently, it is still a major source of both complications and death among patients with myeloma.

Bone disease is so severe in myeloma because the normal bone remodeling process is disrupted. In normal individuals, damaged bone is removed by bone-destroying cells, the osteoclasts, and then bone is replaced by bone-forming cells, the osteoblasts. In myeloma, the number and activity of…

This past Sunday was the third day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2011 annual meeting, and it was a particularly busy day for meeting attendees interested in multiple myeloma.

The Beacon published an update yesterday covering two sets of presentations made at Sunday’s oral session about multiple myeloma.  This article covers the other set of presentations, which was about myeloma bone disease, as well as material from an afternoon education session focused on myeloma.

Myeloma Bone…

This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, which began on Friday and goes through Tuesday, is being held in Chicago.

On the first day of the meeting, there was only one talk related to multiple myeloma.  During an afternoon education session, in which current practice and recent research results are reviewed, Dr. Raphael Fonseca from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, spoke about high-risk multiple myeloma.

The second day of the meeting included a morning and an afternoon session in which myeloma researchers presented their findings in…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced earlier today that denosumab, which will be marketed by Amgen under the brand name Xgeva, has been approved to help prevent fractures and to slow bone disease in patients with solid tumors. It was not approved at this time for use in patients with multiple myeloma.

“It wasn’t approved [for myeloma] because the Xgeva-treated subset of multiple myeloma patients had more deaths than the control arm,” said Erica Jefferson, a spokesperson for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Xgeva is an antibody that…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that it approved Amgen’s Xgeva to help prevent fractures and to slow bone disease in patients with solid tumors that have spread to and caused damage to bone. Xgeva was not approved, however, for multiple myeloma patients with bone damage.

Xgeva is the new brand name given to denosumab when used for the treatment of cancer-related bone disease. Denosumab at lower doses is marketed under the brand name Prolia for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis and a high risk of…