I am Bruno Paiva from the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, and at this ASH meeting we are presenting an abstract investigating the genomic relationship as well as the independent prognostic value of circulating tumor cells.
CTCs that are measured at diagnosis in patients with active myeloma and measurable residual disease, or MRD, after treatment.
And so the abstract there’s two different, let’s say, sections. One is much more biological and the other one more clinical.
From the biological point of view, we compared the genome of CTCs and MRD from the same patients. And we found that the concordance in terms of genetic alterations was around 30–35%. Which is actually low, meaning that these clones, these rare subpopulations, have a different genomic background. And this may help us to understand why they have different pathogenic function.
CTCs, on the one hand, are responsible for disease dissemination. MRD, on the other hand, is responsible for treatment resistance prior to relapse.
And then from the clinical point of view, we showed that these two biomarkers are independent of independent prognostic value. Are applicable in transplant eligible and ineligible patients. They are empowered when used together to identify patients with high risk disease.
Median progression free survival of two to three years, regardless of staging at diagnosis using, for example, the revised ISS.
And I think it was very important to see how patients being MRD negative, but showing high CTC levels at diagnosis, more than 0.2%, the PFS was not as good as one would expect for the MRD negative population, and we believe that these results may have importance from the clinical decision making point of view among MRD negative patients.
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HealthTree • December 19, 2025