Usmani Highlights Shift Toward MRD-Guided, Fixed-Duration Treatment in Multiple Myeloma at IMS

Saad Usmani, MD, shares a key takeaway from the International Myeloma Society (IMS) meeting: the field is moving toward defining how long patients with multiple myeloma should receive treatment, and that decision will increasingly be guided by achieving and maintaining measurable residual disease (MRD) negativity.

In this video, recorded live from IMS, Usmani explains that this approach ties directly into the growing discussion around cure fractions, or the proportion of patients who may be cured, and the goal of increasing that proportion. Rather than continuing therapy indefinitely, clinicians may be able to use sustained MRD negativity as a marker to inform when treatment can stop.

Usmani also describes an important theme emerging at the meeting: a move away from the long-held view that myeloma is an incurable disease. Patients are living much longer than they did 20 years ago, and that progress is changing how the disease is discussed. As fixed-duration treatment models take hold, Usmani says clinicians will be able to have more confident conversations with patients about long-term outcomes and the possibility of cure.