COMy 2017 | Advances in multiple myeloma treatment over the last years

Vincent Rajkumar, MD, from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, discusses the advances of the last few years in multiple myeloma (MM) treatment at the 2017 World Congress on Controversies in Multiple Myeloma (COMy) in Paris, France. Dr Rajkumar explains that recent clinical trials have shed light on the best way to approach to treating myeloma patients. He argues that a newly diagnosed patient, who receives a frontline regimen of VRD (bortezomib-lenalidomide-dexamethasone), followed by and in combination with transplantation and subsequent maintenance therapy can expect to live ten or more years. For second-line, the combinations based on the monoclonal antibody daratumumab can further improve the patient’s life expectancy.
In addition, Dr Rajkumar speaks about the value of transplantation in this age of new therapeutic agents and how recent studies determined that the timing may not be particular important for overall survival (OS), allowing some patients flexibility on when to perform the transplant. He concludes discussing the differences in maintenance therapy and its effectiveness between different subsets of patients.