Dr. Usmani Discusses Perseus Data Implications, Other Myeloma Updates

Saad Usmani, MD, MBA, FACP, Chief of the Myeloma Service at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, joined Chadi Nabhan, MD, MBA, FACP, on The HemOnc Pulse to chat about the latest research in multiple myeloma from the 65th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.

Dr. Usmani shared insights on the evolution in myeloma treatment since he first started practicing in the hematologic oncology space. He recalled that early in his career, treating clinicians were more concerned about eliciting a treatment response.

“We didn’t care about the depth of response, we just wanted any response from patients,” he said. “If we got a PR, that was a measure of success at that time, and now the paradigm has changed.”

With that natural history of myeloma in mind, Dr. Usmani reflected on the current debate about whether it is time to change induction treatment from three to four drugs. He discussed how the Perseus trial, a late-breaking ASH abstract, is part of that history.

“It’s really validating the use of quadruplets as the preferred induction treatment,” he said. “The previous question mark used to be ‘well, Griffin is only phase II,’…now we actually have phase III data that are kind of validating the same message.”