multiple myeloma

Then there is Dr. Kenneth C. Anderson.

He is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center and the Lebeau Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics at Dana-Farber.

Dr. Anderson is a globally dominant authority in multiple myeloma research.

Over four decades, his bench-to-bedside studies transformed myeloma therapy, culminating in the FDA approval of novel, targeted therapies like the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib.

He has received nearly every award in the field, including the American Cancer Society Medal of Honor, the William Damoshek Prize, and the Robert A. Kyle Lifetime Achievement Award.

He is deeply revered by the multiple myeloma patient community.

Finally, Dr. Irene M. Gobriel.

She is the Senior Vice President for Experimental Medicine and the Levine Family Chair for Preventative Cancer Therapies at Dana-Farber.

And I'm Dr. Sally Moore.

And this is a Myeloma Minutes, a podcast for people affected by myeloma, patients, friends and family.

Hi Sally, how are you doing? It's good to be recording another podcast after a little break over the summer.

Yeah, it's good to be back and I think we've had some time, haven't we, Jam, to think about, you know, when we're seeing patients in clinic, which pods we haven't done.

Yeah, no, really great episode, Sally.

And exciting times coming in the next few weeks in myeloma.

It's the International Myeloma Society meeting.

It's held once a year.

Yeah, so, oh, I love that question.

Um, I, I'm currently working with, um, Myeloma UK and Race Equality Foundation.

So Blood Cancer UK, Race Equality Foundation, and Myeloma UK, and there's a lot of charities.

It's not just myeloma.

There's the, is it the AC- ACLT, I think? ACLT.

There's a lot of charities working right now, um, and the main aim for all of them is raising a- awareness within the BAME population about the cancers that affect us, that, especially the blood cancers that affect us as a community that are not really well known.

I kind of feel that, um, the solid tumors get a lot of press and national coverage, um, but the blood cancers, especially the blood cancers that affect our population and the blood cancers that need donors from our population but they're not aware of, so we're raising awareness right now.

Um, the Race Equality Foundation is currently working with, um, Myeloma UK like I mentioned, and they've trained community connectors, and I'm one of them.

It may not be what I want, but I have to be ready to live whatever is in front.

All right, so after surviving the challenges of the recession, you faced another major storm when you were diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

Myeloma.

Myeloma.

Okay, myeloma.

How did you process that news?

In plain English, A kind of deep remission, not a cure.

Myeloma doesn't really do cure.

It's more like a quiet truce than the final victory.

But it was genuine.

You don't set the sails once and sit back for the rest of the journey.

You're constantly reading the wind, adjusting the lines, recalibrating at the helm when the swells come in.

Myeloma doesn't let you stand still for long.

but it also doesn't ask you to sprint the whole way either.

So we'll jump right in.

So we'll start with a case because most of our abstracts today will be focused on early relapse multiple myeloma 1, 2, 3 prior lines.

So we'll start with the case and then we will go into some of the key trials.

So this is a 70-year-old male diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2021, received data VRD induction followed by auto transplant.

and then single agent LEN maintenance.

He now relapses with anemia and new lytic lesions, so clinical relapse in 2026, approximately four years post his auto transplant and while on LEN maintenance.

And basically this trial included patients who were non-refractory, but only about 5% of patients were CD38 exposed and none were CD38 refractory.

So this was mostly a CD38 naive population with only about 5% having CD38 exposure.

I'm your host, Ryan Topping.

Today's episode features Dr. Thanos Dimopoulos from the University of Athens and Alexandra Hospital in Athens, Greece, and Dr. Maria Victoria Mateos from the University Hospital of Salamanca in Salamanca, Spain, as they discuss the use of cell mod agents to manage multiple myeloma, including the recent FDA approval of iverdamide, mechanism of action and differentiation of cell mods from image, and current data and potential treatment settings.

This episode is part of a larger educational program titled Novel Approaches in Relapsed Refractory Multiple Myeloma, Expert Perspectives on Emerging Data and Ongoing Trials.

For more information, along with a link to the larger education program, please visit the show notes for this episode.

Now, let's get started and hear what our experts have to say about this important topic.

Hello to everyone and welcome to this podcast in which we will have the opportunity to discuss about cell modes agents for multiple myeloma.

My name is Maria Victoria Mateos and I work as a hematologist at the University Hospital of Salamanca in Spain.

And Professor Dimopoulos will join me this podcast today.

Well, for the last 11 and a half years, almost 12 years, uh, I was, I think, um, in my 60s, and I was pretty healthy, but I knew, again, a gut feeling something was off, and went to an oncology person and a hematologist, and he was wonderful, and he said, "All your blood tests come back really great, but the cancer markers are showing different." You know, when you just do a basic blood test, everything can look really good.

Um, so he asked me to follow through with that, and it was a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, which is, um, bone marrow disease.

Different than my brother's, I had to ask that question.

Um, but it certainly affects the, the protein and the bone marrow, uh, and on the myeloma cells.