We started our day at 5:30 am by hopping on a shuttle to head over to the International Myeloma Working Group Breakfast sponsored by the IMF.  I must say it was an extraordinary experience to be in the room with all the top Myeloma Doctors, listening to their research (which I can’t tell you about or I’d have to kill you…not really, that’s from a movie…but I can’t tell you)!  What I can tell you is that this is a VERY dedicated group of physicians, and they are working hard to advance treatment in multiple myeloma (MM) for us all. We are in VERY GOOD hands! I’ve listened to so many of these specialists in webinars that I felt like I knew them! I had to remind myself that I indeed did not know them, but I thanked whomever I did talk to for the work they do! Some pretty exciting stuff in the pipeline: some of it will be reported on in the coming days, so I’ll try to get that to you all.

As for reporting on the actual conference today, I am going to leave that to a future blog so I can do it justice—but here are some key takeaways:

• Darzalex (daratumumab) is awesome, and treating the newly diagnosed with quadruplets is the way to go!
• Twenty-four-hour urine collections are very useful in initial screening, but they may not be necessary in later assessments.
• There were a few abstracts speaking to quicker assessments in relapse, which one would hope will translate into quicker treatment of the patient.
• There was an interesting abstract on the Influenza vaccine; it might benefit MM patients to do a three-dose series rather than the one vaccine, especially if you are on a CD38 monoclonal antibody like Darzalex (daratumumab).
• IVIG (Intravenous immunoglobulin) reduces infections in patients treated with BCMA (B-cell maturation antigen) bispecific antibodies.
• There were a few abstracts on minimal residual disease (MRD) testing, but I’ll write more on that next time!
• And, the last abstract talked about measuring serum BCMA levels in non-secretory disease to monitor for disease progression—it showed some promising results.

That’s my abridged synopsis of day one. Please read this understanding that I am a myeloma patient telling you what I personally understood from all I listened to. I’ll write in a little more detail in the coming days. All in all, a GREAT experience and very heartening and comforting to see all that is being done to enhance the treatment of multiple myeloma patients!

One word: H O P E !!!

@TerryGlassman