Minimal residual disease status appeared prognostic for PFS at three specific time points for patients with multiple myeloma, according to results of a correlative study.
“Converting to minimal residual disease (MRD) negative … does not mean [patients] can stop their therapy, but it does convey a significant association with longer survival and long-term PFS,” Theresa Hahn, PhD, professor of oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, told HemOnc Today. “Clinicians should routinely incorporate MRD testing … into patients’ disease assessments at regular intervals. MRD assessments should be done at various points during the patient’s therapy, not just at one time.”
The prospective randomized phase 3 STaMINA trial — results of which were published earlier this year in Journal of Clinical Oncology — assessed multiple interventions for patients with multiple myeloma who underwent autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant and then received maintenance therapy with the immunomodulating agent lenalidomide (Revlimid, Celgene).
In the correlative PRIMeR study — selected for a Best Abstract Award at this year’s Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Meetings — Hahn and colleagues aimed to determine if MRD status in a patient’s bone marrow at key points of treatment accurately predicted long-term disease control.
Researchers assessed MRD in bone marrow samples by multiparameter flow cytometry at three specified time points: before transplant (baseline), after transplant but before initiation of maintenance therapy (pre-maintenance), and 1 year after HSCT.