March 25, 2024: RCSI research has revealed that venetoclax, a drug currently approved for leukaemia, has benefits for patients with multiple myeloma when used in combination with another drug. This discovery opens up new avenues for treating the currently incurable disease.
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a type of blood cancer that is diagnosed in approximately 400 people in Ireland each year. Despite advances in treatment in recent years, it remains incurable. The search for innovative treatment strategies is crucial, especially for patients whose cancer is resistant to standard treatment.
In the new study, published in Haematologica, researchers from the RCSI Department of Physiology and Medical Physics and the Beaumont RCSI Cancer Centre set out to identify complementary drugs that would enhance the effectiveness of venetoclax, a drug approved for use in leukaemia, for MM treatment. Although previously tested in MM, venetoclax, which blocks the function of a protein called BCL-2, proved effective in only a small proportion of patients.
The researchers found that combining venetoclax with a drug called 5-azacytidine significantly increased its effectiveness across many MM cell lines, suggesting a broader potential patient population could be treated with the new combination.
https://haematologica.org/article/view/haematol.2023.283771
