Dr. Biran Discusses Treatment Discontinuation in Myeloma

Noa Biran, MD, physician, Multiple Myeloma Division, John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses treatment discontinuation in multiple myeloma.

Among the multiple new advances in the treatment of patients with myeloma, one of the challenges that persists is keeping patients on treatment. Biran says that although recent studies of triplet regiments have reported impressive median progression-free survival data, the real-world data shows that the median time on therapy is much shorter. This signifies that the community needs to investigate why patients do not say on treatment, she adds.

Trials of patient-reported outcomes are aiming to answer that question. Patients often feel burden of disease or burden of therapy, causing them to discontinue treatment, explains Biran. In myeloma, she says it is very important to find therapies that are well tolerated because it a chronic disease that requires continuous therapy. People who stay on therapy longer live longer, and the only way to figure out how to keep patients on therapy is to look at quality of life, Biran concludes.