Circulating Tumour DNA for Detecting Minimal Residual Disease in Multiple Myeloma

Circulating tumour DNA analysis in multiple myeloma

Minimal residual disease in multiple myeloma.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a B-cell malignancy in which abnormal, clonal plasma cells proliferate and accumulate in the bone marrow. These abnormal cells, referred to as myeloma cells, disrupt normal bone marrow function and invade bone. Myeloma cells produce and secrete significant quantities of monoclonal protein (M-protein) into the blood and/or urine.1 The clinical features of MM include hype...

New criteria for response assessment: role of minimal residual disease in multiple myeloma.

Assessment of minimal residual disease (MRD) is becoming standard diagnostic care for potentially curable neoplasms such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia. In multiple myeloma (MM), the majority of patients will inevitably relapse despite achievement of progressively higher complete remission (CR) rates. Novel treatment protocols with inclusion of antibodies and small molecules might well be able...

Detection and Characterization of Circulating Tumour Cells in Multiple Myeloma

Multiple myeloma (MM) remains an incurable disease despite recent therapeutic improvements. The ability to detect and characterize MM circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in peripheral blood provides an alternative to replace or augment invasive bone marrow (BM) biopsies with a simple blood draw, providing real-time, clinically relevant information leading to improved disease management and therapy ...

Minimal Residual Disease Assessment in the Context of Multiple Myeloma Treatment

With contemporary therapeutic strategies in multiple myeloma, heretofore unseen depth and rate of responses are being achieved. These strategies have paralleled improvements in outcome of multiple myeloma patients. The integration of the next generation of proteasome inhibitors and antibody therapeutics promise continued improvements in therapy with the expectation of consistent depth of respon...