Project description:The therapeutic strategy for relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) integrates a holistic approach regarding patient, disease, and drug-related factors. Patient-related factors include age, frailty status, and underlying comorbidities, especially cardiovascular and renal diseases and peripheral neuropathies that affect tolerability to multiple drug combinations or transplantations. Disease-related factors encompass these multiple patient-related factors, particularly the aggressiveness of the disease and cytogenetics. Regarding drug-related factors, the approval of novel proteasome inhibitors (such as carfilzomib and ixazomib), immunomodulatory agents (such as pomalidomide), monoclonal antibodies (such as daratumumab and elotuzumab), and new classes of drugs increasingly makes the choice treatment more complex and necessitates a comprehensive summary and an update of the efficacy and toxicities of each antimyeloma drug and its combinations. Further, careful monitoring of the side effects and supportive care throughout the course of treatment are important to achieve better outcomes for patients with RRMM.
Project description:Background and objectivesThis study describes preferences of German relapsed refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) patients with novel proteasome inhibitor-based combination treatments.MethodsPatients with a minimum age of 18 years and a diagnosis of RRMM were included. Their preferences were assessed using a discrete choice experiment design, which was developed based on a literature review and two patient focus group discussions. The final discrete choice experiment design consisted of four attributes, namely "therapy application regimen," "time without progression of disease," "possibility of grade ≥3 adverse events (AEs) affecting the blood," and "possibility of grade ≥3 AE heart failure."ResultsAnalysis was based on 84 patients (36.9% females, mean age 62.7 years, mean multiple myeloma disease duration 5.5 years). Among the tested attributes, "therapy application regimen" was assigned the highest importance for treatment decisions (38.8%), the second important attribute was "time without progression of disease" (38.7%), followed by "possibility of AE heart failure" (13.9%) and "possibility of AEs affecting the blood" (8.6%). Patients preferred oral intake once a day and once a week over other application modes such as oral intake once a day and once a week plus twice-weekly infusions. Furthermore, they preferred longer disease progression-free time and lower risk of grade ≥3 AEs. The highest overall utility was derived for ixazomib + lenalidomide + dexamethasone (utility: 3.218), compared with lenalidomide + dexamethasone (2.769), and carfilzomib + lenalidomide + dexamethasone (1.928).ConclusionRRMM patients prefer treatments with an all-oral application, a longer disease-progression-free time, and a lower probability of AEs. If patients face tradeoffs, they accept a lower progression-free time and/or higher AE rates to get an all-oral therapy.
Project description:Lenalidomide is an amino-substituted derivative of thalidomide with direct antiproliferative and cytotoxic effects on the myeloma tumor cell, as well as antiangiogenic activity and immunomodulatory effects. Together with the introduction of bortezomib and thalidomide, lenalidomide has significantly improved the survival of patients with relapsed and refractory myeloma. The most common adverse events associated with lenalidomide include fatigue, skin rash, thrombocytopenia, and neutropenia. In addition, when lenalidomide is combined with dexamethasone or other conventional cytotoxic agents, there is an increase in the incidence of venous thromboembolic events. There is now evidence that continued treatment with lenalidomide has a significant impact on survival by improving the depth and duration of response. This highlights the value of adverse event management and appropriate dose adjustments to prevent toxicity, and of allowing continued treatment until disease progression. In this review, we will discuss the different lenalidomide-based treatment regimens for patients with relapsed/refractory myeloma. This is accompanied by recommendations of how to manage and prevent adverse events associated with lenalidomide-based therapy.
Project description:Multiple myeloma (MM) represents an incurable hematologic malignancy. Despite significant advances over the past decade, with the advent of multiple new classes of anti-myeloma agents, including immunomodulatory drugs, proteasome inhibitors and monoclonal antibodies, patients ultimately relapse. Selinexor is a first-in-class exportin-1 inhibitor with activity in these multiply relapsed and refractory patients. Although the current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval is for the doublet of Selinexor in combination with dexamethasone, ongoing clinical trials are evaluating a number of combination regimens. These triplet and quadruplet, selinexor-based, regimens are showing significant activity in "triple-class" refractory patients. With appropriate combination drug choice, drug dosing, and supportive measures, patients with previously no viable options for therapy, now have multiple potential regimens to control their disease.
Project description:This phase 1, open-label, dose-escalation study investigated the tolerated dose (recommended dose), safety, efficacy, and pharmacokinetics of pomalidomide alone or pomalidomide plus low-dose dexamethasone in Japanese patients with refractory or relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. Twelve patients were enrolled. Patients received pomalidomide 2 mg (Cohort 1) or 4 mg (Cohort 2) orally on day 1 and days 3-21 of a 28-day cycle. The tolerated dose of pomalidomide was determined to be 4 mg given on days 1-21 of a 28-day cycle. Efficacy outcomes with pomalidomide plus low-dose dexamethasone were consistent with those of previous studies. Responses (partial response or better) were achieved by three patients (25%; 1 [17%] in Cohort 1 and 2 [33%] in Cohort 2), and the median time to response was 6.4 months overall (9.0 months for Cohort 1 and 4.2 months for Cohort 2). The median progression-free survival was 5.5 months overall (5.1 months for Cohort 1 and not reached for Cohort 2). The most frequently occurring grade ?3 adverse events were neutropenia (67%), anemia (25%), lymphopenia (25%), and pneumonia (25%), consistent with previous studies of pomalidomide plus low-dose dexamethasone in refractory or relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. Further investigation of pomalidomide is recommended for Japanese patients with refractory or relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01568294).
Project description:Oncogenic activated RAS mutations have been detected in 50% of de novo and 70% of relapsed multiple myeloma (MM) patients. Translocation t(11;14) involving IgH/CCDN1 and overexpression of cyclin-Ds are early events in MM pathogenesis, enhancing uncontrolled MM cell growth. We hypothesized that targeting both RAS/MAPK pathway molecules including Erk1/2 along with cyclin-Ds enhances MM cytotoxicity and minimizes side effects. Recent studies have demonstrated the high potency of Erk1/2 and CDK4/6 inhibitors in metastatic relapsed cancers, and here we tested anti-MM effects of the Erk1/2 + CDK4/6 inhibitor combination. Our studies showed strong synergistic (IC < 0.5) cytotoxicity of Erk1/2i + CDK4/6i in MM-cells. Erk1/2i + CDK4/6i treatment in a dose-dependent manner arrested MM-cells in the G0/G1 phase and activated mitochondrial apoptotic signaling. Our studies showed that Erk1/2i + CDK4/6i treatment-induced inhibition of key target molecules in Erk1/2 and CDK4/6 signaling, such as c-myc, p-RSK, p-S6, p-RB, and E2F1, suggesting on-target activity of these inhibitors. We identified Erk1/2i + CDK4/6i treatment associated five-gene signature which includes SNRPB and SLC25A5; these genes are involved in RNA processing and mitochondrial metabolism, respectively. Overall, our studies provide the preclinical framework for Erk1/2i + CDK4/6i combination clinical trials to target Ras+CDK pathways to improve patient outcome in MM.
Project description:Multiple myeloma is a complex hematologic malignancy, and despite a survival improvement related to the growing number of available therapeutic options since 2000s, it remains an incurable disease with most patients experiencing relapse. However, therapeutic options for this disease are constantly evolving and immunotherapy is becoming the mainstay of the therapeutic armamentarium of Multiple Myeloma (MM), starting with monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs) as elotuzumab, daratumumab and isatuximab. Elotuzumab, the first in class targeting SLAMF7, in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone and daratumumab, directed against CD38, in combination with Rd and with bortezomib and dexamethasone (Vd), have been approved for the treatment of relapsed/refractory MM (RRMM) after they demonstrated excellent efficacy. More recently, another anti-CD38 MoAb named isatuximab was approved by FDA in combination with pomalidomide-dexamethasone (Pd) in the same setting. Many phase II and III trials with regimens containing these MoAbs are ongoing, and when available, preliminary data are very encouraging. In this review we will describe the results of major clinical studies that have been conducted with elotuzumab, daratumumab and isatuximab in RRMM, focusing on phase III trials. Moreover, we will summarized the emerging MoAbs-based combinations in the RRMM landscape.
Project description:Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable plasma cell neoplasia characterized by relapsed and/or refractory (R/R) disease course, which poses a major therapeutic challenge. New therapies, including BRAF V600E mutation targeting, may become a new treatment option for R/R MM. In combination with mitogen-activated protein kinase inhibitors (MEKi), BRAF inhibitors (BRAFi) could provide better tailored clinical management, although experience in this field is lacking. To this date, there is only one case describing R/R MM treatment with BRAFi vemurafenib and MEKi cobimetinib. This is the first case presenting a R/R MM patient treated with BRAFi dabrafenib and MEKi trametinib.
Project description:Patients with multiple myeloma-bearing translocation t(11;14) have recently been shown to benefit from the apoptosis-inducing drug venetoclax; however, the drug lacks FDA approval in multiple myeloma thus far due to a potential safety signal in the overall patient population. Selinexor is an inhibitor of nuclear export that is FDA-approved for patients with multiple myeloma refractory to multiple lines of therapy. Here, we report that in four patients with multiple myeloma with t(11;14), the concomitant administration of venetoclax and selinexor was safe and associated with disease response. Moreover, the combination was synergistic in t(11;14) multiple myeloma cell lines and caused decreased levels of Cyclin D1 (which is overexpressed due to the CCND1-IGH fusion) when given in combination as compared to single agents. These data suggest that the combination of venetoclax and selinexor is effective and t(11;14) may serve as a therapeutic marker for response and target for future clinical trials.