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A group of 97 patients had longstanding multiple myeloma, a common blood cancer that doctors consider incurable, and faced a certain, and extremely painful, death within about a year. They had gone through a series of treatments, each of which controlled their disease for a while. But then it came back, as it always does. They reached the stage where they had no more options and were facing hospice. They all got immunotherapy, in a study that was a last-ditch effort. (Kolata, 6/3)

Patients with undetectable disease after induction therapy for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) did not have significantly better outcomes with a stem-cell transplant versus drug therapy, according to a study reported here. Among patients who received four-drug consolidation therapy, 84% had measurable residual disease (MRD)-negative status before starting maintenance therapy. That compared with 86% of patients who had a stem-cell transplant plus pharmacologic consolidation therapy. (Bankhead, 6/3)

Tests searching for tumor DNA that’s circulating in the blood are surging in popularity, because they can clue clinicians into what’s happening with a patient’s cancer long before any changes appear on more traditional tools like MRI or CT scans. Some of these ctDNA tests can show if cancer will recur months before any lesions are visible, and others can give information about how a cancer will or is responding to a certain therapy. Sales of the tests have soared, and here at the American Society for Clinical Oncology annual meeting this week, there were dozens of abstracts looking at ctDNA and its use in clinical decision-making. (Chen, 6/4)

A single-center study supported recent U.S. recommendations that lowered the colorectal cancer screening age to 45. Screening colonoscopy outcomes were slightly less common in people ages 45-49 compared with those 50-54 years old, but only the risk for any adenoma was significantly lower in the younger group, ... reported Jeffrey Lee, MD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Pleasanton, and colleagues in JAMA. (6/3)

People are more likely to get cancer as they age. Dr. Miriam Merad has an unconventional idea of how that might be reversed: using allergy drugs and other seemingly unlikely medications to damp a condition known as “inflammaging.” The immunologist and oncologist has spent years examining malignant tumors to learn why people over age 50 account for nine in 10 cancer diagnoses in the U.S. She and her research team at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City have homed in on an answer: the aging immune system. (McKay, 6/3)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Two Patients Faced Chemo. The One Who Survived Demanded A Test To See If It Was Safe

JoEllen Zembruski-Ruple, while in the care of New York City’s renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, swallowed the first three chemotherapy pills to treat her squamous cell carcinoma on Jan. 29, her family members said. They didn’t realize the drug could kill her. Six days later, Zembruski-Ruple went to Sloan Kettering’s urgent care department to treat sores in her mouth and swelling around her eyes. (Allen, 6/4)