Dr. Evangelos Terpos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, presents an abstract on increased baseline circulating tumor cells levels in patients with newly-diagnosed multiple myeloma and its association with poor prognosis.

Background:

The presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) has long been suggested as a valuable prognostic biomarker in Multiple Myeloma (MM). Recently, increased baseline CTC levels in patients with newly-diagnosed MM (NDMM) have been associated with adverse outcomes in the GEM2012MENOS65/GEM2014MAIN and FORTE trials.

Conclusions:

Our results confirm the negative and independent prognostic impact of increased CTC levels in the NDMM and further imply its relevance in the real-world setting to establish improved risk-stratification models. Moreover, since the liquid biopsy is a better representative of the entire tumor load than a tissue biopsy sample, the analysis of CTCs may serve as the new hallmark for the real-time evaluation of a patient’s disease and/or immune status.

Authors:

Ioannis V Kostopoulos, PhD, Panagiotis Malandrakis, MD, Ioannis Ntanasis-Stathopoulos, MD, Pantelis Roussakis, MSc, Evangelos Eleutherakis Papaiakovou, MD, Chrysanthi Panteli, Nikolaos Angelis, Nikolaos Kanellias, MD, Nikolaos Orologas-Stavrou, Foteini Theodorakakou, MD, Despina Fotiou, MD, Magdalini Migkou, MD, Maria Gavriatopoulou, MD, Efstathios Kastritis, MD, Ourania E. Tsitsilonis, MD, PhD, Meletios-Athanasios Dimopoulos, MD, PhD and Evangelos Terpos, MD, PhD

ASH Abstract #647: https://ash.confex.com/ash/2022/webprogram/Paper162689.html (https://ash.confex.com/ash/2022/webprogram/Paper162689.html)