Description:

Treatment options for myeloma have rapidly progressed over the past decade allowing for important discussion of topics such as treatment of precursor diseases, maintenance therapy, and the importance of combination therapy.

Dr. Rajkumar will review and discuss the new myeloma criteria that now include biomarkers of disease activity in addition to the traditional CRAB criteria. He will also provide insight into the future criteria that may be included as defining myeloma, and will also discuss the potential future implications of early treatment for smoldering myeloma patients.

Dr. Facon will review available evidence on the use of maintenance therapy in myeloma, with an eye towards future approaches using biomarkers to predict optimal choice of agents, and duration of therapy.

Dr. Lonial will review the rationale for combination therapy in myeloma, and emerging data from phase II and III trials testing combination therapy vs sequential therapy. Incorporating new agents and how to best combine them will also be discussed.