“Multiple myeloma is a tumor of the bone marrow, more specifically of lymphocytes and plasma cells. It has an estimated incidence in Italy of slightly less than 6 thousand new diagnoses per year, of which approximately a third are made randomly, in the absence of any symptoms In patients with symptoms, the most frequent is attributable to skeletal pathology, which at the time of diagnosis affects approximately 2 thirds of patients”. This was said by Michele Cavo, director of the ‘LA Seràgnoli’ Institute of Hematology, Irccs S. Orsola-Malpighi, and professor of Hematology at the University of Bologna, on the occasion of the press conference dedicated to the announcement of Aifa’s green light to the reimbursement of selinexor, a selective oral inhibitor of the Xpo1 protein, in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who have undergone at least one previous therapy.
In the past, multiple myeloma was a neoplasm with “an average survival of around 3 years”, but over the “last twenty years” survival “has greatly increased. This has been possible – explains Cavo – thanks to the availability of new classes of drugs, not chemotherapeutic, but biological. The most used classes of drugs are proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulators and monoclonal antibodies. Each class can then include different drugs that have a different toxicity profile. they also have a different efficacy compared to the drug that preceded them”. Myeloma therapy “has made use of the combination of this class of drugs, which often have synergistic mechanisms of action between them. And this explains why the results have been so significant in terms of improving responses to therapy and prolonging survival – adds the expert – Today we talk about selinexor, an oral inhibitor, a transport protein from the nucleus to the cytoplasm of other proteins and is the first belonging to a new class of drugs. So we are crossing an extremely important milestone in a disease marked by sequential phases of response, relapse and progression, with acquisition of resistance to the drugs to which the patient has previously been exposed”.
“Having a new class of drugs with a mechanism of action different from that of other classes obviously represents a great therapeutic opportunity for patients with this neoplasm, because it further expands what is already a fairly varied range of therapeutic options”, concludes Cavo.
