Obtaining and Defining a Cure in Multiple Myeloma

As multiple myeloma treatment has evolved throughout the years, oncologists are now closer than ever to saying they have a “cure” for the disease, not only in patients who are newly diagnosed, but also in those who have relapsed/refractory disease.

Sundar Jagannath, MBBS, a professor of medicine specializing in hematology and medical oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and The Tisch Cancer Institute, discussed the importance of being able to tell patients that there is a cure for multiple myeloma during an interview with CancerNetwork® at the Society of Hematologic Oncology 2025 Annual Meeting following a presentation he gave titled, “Is It Time to Say “CURE” in Multiple Myeloma?”.

By defining a cure for multiple myeloma, Jagannath stated that patients, physicians, and pharmaceutical partners will all be greatly affected: patients would become more hopeful, treating physicians would become more engaged, and pharmaceutical partners would have specific goals to target when developing new treatment plans.

It would also be useful for regulatory agencies, such as the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), to have an evidence-based end point that creates a pathway to quicker approval for agents as first-line therapies.

Transcript:

It is important to change the dialogue in multiple myeloma. “Is it time to talk about cure in multiple myeloma?” This is an important topic for me. Why is it so important? Let’s put it in perspective. First, for the patient to be told that this is a curable cancer is completely different, as opposed to being told that they are afflicted with an incurable, invariably fatal cancer—it makes a big difference [in terms] of giving hope to the patient. Secondly, for the treating physician, it is important that they understand that, at this time, [multiple] myeloma is a curable cancer, which means they are engaging in patient care in a completely different way. They are keeping themselves up to date on the latest treatment. They are referring the patients for clinical trials with the potential for a cure. That makes a difference in how the physicians approach the patient.

Then, for the [pharmaceutical] industry, this is also very important because if we have a definition for cure, and if it’s a definition that could have a time frame of 5 years, then the [pharmaceutical company] is engaged in developing new treatment plans with a 5-year goal of a potentially curative treatment. They are all engaged, so new clinical trials could be developed in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma with [developing] a cure as the goal. It also allows multiple pharmaceutical industry partners to work with each other because, once you say this is a potentially curative treatment protocol, they would like that asset to be part of the design of the trial. The pharmaceutical industry is very much engaged.

Finally, for the FDA and the EMA as regulatory [agencies], it is also important that there is an evidence-based end point whereby they could approve the drugs earlier as first-line therapy, and so clinical trials can happen. Newly developed drugs could come in clinical trials, and in second-line and third-line [therapy], in a randomized fashion. There are a lot of benefits to that.