Novel Agents for Multiple Myeloma

📖 The Scoop

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant neoplasm of plasma cells that accumulate in bone marrow, leading to bone destruction and marrow failure. It accounts for approximately 1.8% of all hematologic and solid cancers and slightly > 15% of hematologic malignancies in the United States. MM is typically sensitive to different classes of cytotoxic drugs, both as frontline treatment and as treatment for relapsed disease. Unfortunately, even if responses are typically durable, nowadays MM is not considered curable with current approaches.

However, MM survival rates have been brilliantly improved thanks to the introduction of novel agents: patients diagnosed after 2010 have had higher rates of novel therapy use and better survival outcomes compared with those of earlier years. Most relevant therapeutic advances over the past decades has been the introduction of novel therapies, such as immune-modifying agents (thalidomide and lenalidomide) and proteasome inhibitors (bortezomib), adopted with or without stem cell transplantation.

Genre: Science / General (fancy, right?)