Peripheral blood analysis of tumor cells diagnoses patients with multiple myeloma with greater accuracy and safety, according to a latest study led by researchers from Cima and the University Clinic of Navarra.
Multiple myeloma is a type of blood cancer that infiltrates the bone marrow and can spread throughout the skeleton, through the circulation of tumor cells throughout the body, which implies a poor prognosis for the patient. For this reason, it is essential to establish tools to measure in real time the rate of proliferation and dissemination of each patient’s tumor.
Precision diagnosis
According to Bruno Paiva, co-director of the Multiple Myeloma Group at the Cima University of Navarra and researcher at the Cancer CIBER (CIBERONC), “this procedure can improve staging and identify subgroups of patients with a very good prognosis and others who actually have leukemia of plasma cells hidden under their myeloma and that require a different treatment. The results have been published in the “Journal of Clinical Oncology”, a journal of great scientific impact in the field of oncology.
The study, conducted as part of a clinical trial of the Spanish Hematology Treatment Group (PETHEMA), has recruited samples from 374 patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.
Results in patients with smoldering myeloma
Following the results obtained in newly diagnosed patients, researchers from Cima and the University Clinic of Navarra have applied the same procedure to patients with pre-malignant disease. “These are patients who have the same tumor burden as active myeloma, but have no symptoms. Therefore, Accurate stratification is essential to patients whose disease is going to evolve, to investigate the benefit of early treatment in clinical trials”, comments Paiva.
Currently, the risk of patients with smoldering multiple myeloma is measured by following two markers in serum and not in bone marrow. “In this work we show once again that quantifying tumor burden in the blood is less invasive than in the marrow, maintaining its effectiveness. In this way, we can closely monitor each patient and select patients at high risk of transformation early, so that they can benefit from a clinical trial as soon as possible », he assures.
These results are based on a project where these scientists will measure the tumor markers of these patients every six months and will be able to identify those who have stable disease or who are evolving to a more benign or malignant one. “The goal is to predict which patients are going to develop myeloma before there is organ failure and the treatment can be even more effective,” concludes Paiva. This study has recruited samples of 300 patients with smoldering multiple myeloma, from various hospitals scattered throughout 8 countries of the European Union.
Following the results obtained in these works, researchers from Cima and the University Clinic of Navarra have applied the same procedure in patients with monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance (MGUS). “The objective of this study, funded by the CRIS Foundation against cancer, is to predict which patients are going to develop a malignant gammopathy and/or severe infection, to lay the foundations for the development of personalized strategies that prevent both events.”