Molecular and genetic research by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has advanced the categorization of different risk groups in patients with smoldering myeloma, a premalignant condition that can – but doesn’t always – progress to the blood cancer, multiple myeloma.
Dana-Farber presentations at the 63rd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting included a report on genomic characteristics of smoldering myeloma (SMM) in patients who are unlikely to develop myeloma; identification of distinct molecular subgroups of SMM patients with varying risks of progression to myeloma; and finding biomarkers of response to immune therapy in patients with high-risk MM.
Individuals are said to have smoldering multiple myeloma if they have evidence of disease in the bone marrow and other pathological signs putting them at risk of developing myeloma. Research in Dana-Farber’s Center for Prevention of Disease Progression (CPOP) and elsewhere aims to identify factors increasing the chances that smoldering myeloma will progress, and testing interventions to slow or halt that progression.
