Dr. Muzaffar Qazilbash, MD MD Anderson Cancer Center Interview Date: February 25, 2016 

 Immunotherapies are the "next big thing" in multiple myeloma care but it may be too early to have them replace effective treatments like autologous stem cell transplant, iMiDs and proteasome inhibitors. Dr. Muzaffar Qazilbash, MD of MD Anderson Cancer Center shares how the new treatments will be added to current therapies to make outcomes even better for patients with this aggressive cancer. Using the new tools available can potentially offer longer remission times to standard therapy without adding extra toxicity. Dr. Qazilbash shares his most recent study to use a personalized vaccine together with a T Cell treatment and stem cell transplant. The vaccine is personalized based on a patient's own type of myeloma. Additionally, the patient's T cells are removed, grown and expanded in the lab. Following a normal autologous stem cell transplant, the vaccine is administered and the expanded T Cells are given back. This is just one way in which the new immunotherapy approaches can boost the impact of tried and true treatments. 

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