Hello, I'm Dr. Sagar Lonial from the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. And I'm here at the 2024 International Myeloma Society meeting where thousands of physicians that focus on myeloma from all over the world have come together to share their tidbits on how to manage patients with myeloma, their expert insights on the biology and treatment and diagnostic workup around myeloma. And it really is three and a half days fully devoted to myeloma therapy as well as basic biology and science. I just introduced the plenary abstract from the MIDAS study, which is a very important French study, which randomizes patients after their first six cycles of induction therapy to varying treatment arms based purely on MRD status. This idea of using MRD to either escalate or de-escalate therapy is a very new idea based on the technology we now have with the ability to measure minimal residual disease or MRD. This trial, what we saw the data for today, really just looked at responses following induction therapy and breaking down those responses based on genetics. And historically, we have used genetics to stratify by high risk or standard risk, but in the MIDAS trial, they're using depth of response, MRD positive or MRD negative, to do that very same thing. This is an important trial that we'll continue to report out over the coming years and I think will give us insights on how genetics, particularly high risk genetics, interplays with MRD status so that ultimately we can make the optimal decisions for our patients, putting the two together when we make treatment decisions.
HealthTree • October 8, 2024