For patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) multiple myeloma (MM), a new treatment has just been recently FDA approved: belantamab mafodotin-blmf (BLENREP®, GlaxoSmithKline). In an interview with i3 Health, Hans C. Lee, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, speaks about the significance of this approval and what the future may look like on treating these patients. What are the most challenging aspects of treating patients with R/R MM? Hans C. Lee, MD: While there have been...

The FDA has now approved daratumumab (Darzalex®, Janssen) to be used in combination with bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone (VTd) in adult patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are eligible for an autologous stem cell transplant. Daratumumab, a targeted monoclonal antibody, works by attaching itself to a protein called CD38 on multiple myeloma cells. This either directly kills the multiple myeloma cells or allows the body to identify these cells as a foreign invader, therefo...

Although targeted therapies have improved survival for patients with multiple myeloma, relapse still occurs. One hypothesis regarding why relapse happens is that the skeleton provides a niche in which dormant myeloma cells can hide. When scientists testing this hypothesis identified a strategy to sequence the transcriptome of individual dormant myeloma cells from the bones of tumor-ridden mice, they discovered that a specific transcriptome expressed by myeloma cells enriches immune genes and mye...