Is more better in myeloma?

摘要

Rosinol and colleagues report the results of a Spanish PETHEMA trial, in this issue of Blood. Their study was an attempt to address the role of additional intensive treatments for patients failing to achieve a complete or nearly complete remission after a single autologous transplantation.In spite of major advances in treatment over the past decade, multiple myeloma still remains a largely incurable disease. This has led some investigators to abandon any attempt to achieve a cure and treat myeloma as if it were a chronic disease, mainly relying on the novel drugs such as bortezomib, thalidomide, and lenalidomide with or without conventional chemotherapy at low doses. Others have further increased treatment intensity by introducing a second autotransplantation or an initial autologous transplantation followed by a reduced-intensity allotransplantation, in an attempt to obtain long-term survival or cure.