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Myeloma UK clear1 videos · sorted by score DESC
| 1 | Myeloma UK | Immunomodulatory drugs | 9957 | 62 | 4 | 52.7 | positive | 2:33 | Immunomodulatory drugs are really effective for the treatment of myeloma and this is because they work in several different ways to affect myeloma cell growth. So not only can they kill myeloma cells directly but they can also alter blood supply taking nutrients to myeloma cells, they can affect the way myeloma cells stick in the bone marrow and also boost the patient's own immune system to fight myeloma cells. The first immunomodulatory agent that was used is called thylidamide and this is part of a family of drugs which have subsequently been tweaked to make them more effective and have fewer side effects. So there are generations of these called lentalidamide or revlimid and pomolidamide or imnevid and these two drugs are now being increasingly used for treatment in myeloma. The most recently developed immunomodulatory drug pomolidamide shows a lot of promise for patients at relapse and a recent large clinical trial showed that for those patients taking the pomolidamide the myeloma took longer to come back. All of the immunomodulatory agents have the potential to cause birth defects and so patients and their doctors need to have a discussion about how to prevent this. Other side effects with immunomodulatory agents include gastrointestinal disturbances such as constipation or diarrhea and sometimes damage to the nerve supplying sensation to the fingers and toes which is called peripheral neuropathy. Most of these side effects are less with the newer generation of drugs such as lentalidamide and pomolidamide. Immuneemodulatory drugs are particularly effective for the treatment of myeloma because they attack a lot of different pathways in the myeloma cell. They're also relatively easy for patients to take because they're a tablet treatment and don't require the patient to be in hospital. And increasingly they are being shown to be effective at all different points of patient treatment. | ↗ |