Dr. Ghobrial Discusses the Importance of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation's CureCloud Study

Irene Ghobrial, MD, director of the Clinical Investigator Research Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, discusses the importance of the data made available through the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation’s CureCloud research study.

The current standard in multiple myeloma practice is to measure disease burden and assess risk in bone marrow using tests such as fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and cytogenetics. An advancement with CureCloud is the use of a unique, state-of-the-art CLIA-grade liquid biopsy, through which circulating cell-free DNA from a patient blood draw will be analyzed using next-generation sequencing (NGS) to obtain in-depth genomic information on each patient’s specific subtype of myeloma and detect and actionable genomic alterations.

Utilization of NGS is several steps up for precision medicine in myeloma, Ghobrial says. In addition, by participating in CureCloud, both physician and their patients will receive the genomic testing results of the patient’s myeloma, which can help inform and improve physician/patient conversations and decision-making around future treatment options, including clinical trials.