Progress in drug therapy for multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma remains incurable with conventional treatments. However, new active drugs, including the immunomodulatory agents, thalidomide and lenalidomide, and the proteasome inhibitors bortezomib and NPI-0052, and other targeted therapies, have shown promising anti-myeloma activity. These agents represent a new generation of treatments for multiple myeloma that affect both specific intracellular signaling pathways and the tumor microenvironment. This review therefore focuses on the extensive clinical data available from studies of these drugs in the treatment of newly diagnosed, refractory and relapsed multiple myeloma.