ASH Multiple Myeloma Spotlight

Baseline LDH levels, ECOG performance status, and presence/absence of liver metastasis are clinical characteristics associated with favorable progression-free survival (PFS) in BRAF V600-mutated melanoma patients receiving vemurafenib (Zelboraf) monotherapy or combination cobimetinib (Cotellic) plus vemurafenib, according to an analysis presented at the ASCO 2016 Annual Meeting.

Saad Usmani, MD, discusses newly approved treatments, as well as these combination therapies currently in clinical trials.

With numerous newly approved drugs for patients with early-stage multiple myeloma reaching the clinics, understanding what drugs, combinations, and sequences to use has become an important area of research. Several recent studies have demonstrated increased efficacy with nominally increased adverse events in these triplet arms.

The PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab in combination with an established multiple myeloma regimen showed responses in 76% of a cohort of 17 patients with relapsed/refractory disease in data one of several clinical trials presented at the 2015 ASH Annual Meeting.

Daratumumab demonstrated a 31% overall response rate as monotherapy for patients with heavily pretreated multiple myeloma, according to a combined analysis of two pivotal studies presented at the 2015 ASH Annual Meeting.

Carfilzomib has been found to reduce the risk of progression and death by 47% in patients with relapsed multiple myeloma when compared to bortezomib, according to the the phase III ENDEAVOR trial.

The triple combination of ixazomib, cyclophosphamide, and dexamethasone, all taken orally, showed encouraging early response rates in elderly patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, according to phase II data presented at the 2015 ASH Annual Meeting.