Patients with multiple myeloma who have been treated with a three-drug combination therapy have a growing number of choices for subsequent treatment. Results of a new study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute can help patients and their physicians weigh benefits and risks of each option.
The study, being presented today at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) as a plenary session and published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that newly diagnosed patients treated with a triad of drugs (abbreviated as RVd) lived longer without their disease worsening if they received an autologous stem cell transplant soon after RVd therapy than if they simply had their stem cells collected for a possible future transplant. However, patients were just as likely to be alive more than six years after treatment regardless of whether they underwent an immediate stem cell transplant or chose to reserve transplant as a later option. Importantly the use of maintenance lenalidomide in both groups continuously until progression conferred substantial clinical benefit.
