Day 2 at The 13th International Myeloma Workshop (IMW)

The first session of day 2 at IMW in Paris did not disappoint attendees. The topic was Newly Diagnosed Myeloma <65 Years of Age: Facts and Questions. Michele Cavo started off the session with a personal view on how he treats a patient eligible for high dose therapy and autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT). His standard of care for this patient population is 3 to 4 cycles of a bortezomib-based triplet induction regimen, which is reasonable balanced between efficacy and toxicity, and an early, upfront ASCT. He follows this with consolidation therapy to increase the probability of achieving a high quality response and molecular remission. He does prescribe maintenance therapy with lenalidomide because, although overall survival data is not yet available, lenalidomide maintenance has been shown to decreases the risk of progression, regardless of prior therapies or duration of complete response (CR). He pointed out that long term outcomes of this strategy are being measured in randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Prof. Cavo’s introduction was followed by presentations from each of the major cooperative groups, who discussed their current standards of care as well as the clinical trials that are currently enrolling patients. These cooperative groups continue to make advances in this patient population. The lively panel discussion that followed these presentations held one major theme: a personalized treatment strategy, based upon cytogenetics and gene expression profiling at the molecular level using all available techniques, is necessary for achieving optimal outcomes in all patients.

Pieter Sonneveld from the Netherlands agreed with this assessment as we discussed the session over breakfast this morning. When asked what he felt was the most interesting and practice changing data to come out of this session, he mentioned the molecular data being incorporated into current treatment strategies for patients with MM.

This will make for a very interesting upcoming CME/CE activity: COEs continuing Faculty Perspectives Series, which will be launching soon after this meeting.

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