Conceptualizing an Integrative Multiple Myeloma Care: The Role of Nutrition, Supplements, and Complementary Modalities.

Multiple Myeloma (MM) is the second most prevalent hematologic malignancy, and its incidence has been increasing enormously in recent years. The prognosis of MM has changed radically with the introduction of new drugs that have improved life expectancy; recurrences are a common occurrence during the course of the disease and are characterized by an increase in refractory to treatment. Moreover, MM patients are challenged by quality of life-related concerns while limited conventional therapy may be offered.

Integrative Approaches in the Treatment of Patients Affected by Lymphoma.

Purpose Of Review: Lymphoma is the most frequent hematological malignancy with wide disease spectrum of watchful waiting period, active treatment, survivorship, and palliative care. All these steps impose unmet needs in terms of prevention, symptom alleviation, or prognosis. Complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) is widely used by patients with lymphoma to cope with such issues.

Integrative Hematology: State of the Art.

Blood cancers are a group of diseases with thus far frequently poor prognosis. Although many new drugs, including target therapies, have been developed in recent years, there is still a need to expand our therapeutic armamentarium to better deal with these diseases. Integrative hematology was conceived as a discipline that enriches the patient's therapeutic possibilities with the use of supplements, vitamins and a nutritional approach aiming at improving the response to therapies and the clinical outcome.

Chimerism does not influence graft-versus-myeloma and graft-versus-host disease in reduced intensity setting.

In this study we serially evaluated the chimerism status in 20 multiple myeloma patients allotransplanted with a reduced intensity regimen. All patients engrafted, with total 75% overall responses and 35% of CRs. After a median follow-up of 35 months, seven patients (35%) died, three of them due to disease progression.

Prognostic role of minimal residual disease in multiple myeloma patients after non-myeloablative allogeneic transplantation.

This study evaluates the prognostic value of molecular monitoring of minimal residual disease (MRD) in 20 patients with multiple myeloma (MM) following autologous (peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, PBSCT) and non-myeloablative allogeneic (NMT) transplant. All patients completed their program, with a treatment-related mortality (TRM) of 20% and a 2-year progression-free survival (PFS) of 51%. After PBSCT, only 3 patients (15%) achieved PCR-negativity, versus 12 (60%) after NMT.

Rituximab as treatment for minimal residual disease in hairy cell leukaemia.

Purine analogues have dramatically improved the outcome of patients affected by hairy cell leukemia (HCL), although complete eradication of disease was achieved in few cases. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of Rituximab in eradicating minimal residual disease (MRD) in HCL patients after a pre-treatment with 2-chloro-deoxy-adenosine (2-CdA). Ten patients received four cycles of Rituximab after administration of Cladribrine.