ASH 2024 | Novel biomarkers for predicting disease progression in smoldering myeloma

So the main ways to identify multiple myeloma or smoldering myeloma is using the standard tests for smoldering or multiple myeloma, like the M-spike, bone marrow biopsies, as well as imaging to look for lesions. However, there are more novel studies now that are still at the research level, of course, whereby we’re looking at, for example, soluble BCMA as a biomarker for how likely you’re going to progress to multiple myeloma. And there seems to be an association. So having higher soluble BCMA in the smoldering myeloma phase could be a risk factor to progress to multiple myeloma. 

There are now ongoing proteomic studies even that are looking into over maybe 5,000 proteins that are being expressed in the plasma of the blood and how that correlates with disease progression, and I think there are multiple abstracts right now that have been presented on that, and I think we don’t have well-established biomarkers right now, but we have several that are in the pipeline, and more and more information is being collected on them. And as we see more confirmation that they’re actually correlated with prognosis, I think they’re eventually going to be established. And what I think is that soluble BCMA, at least, is like at the top of the list of being established as a novel biomarker for progression from smoldering to multiple myeloma. 

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