The burden of myeloma: novel approaches to disease assessment

Novel ther a pies in mul ti ple mye loma (MM) have increased the rates of con ven tional com plete remis sion (CR) in patients. However, patients in CR can have highly het ero ge neous out comes. Novel and more sen si tive meth ods of assessing residual disease burden after therapy will help prognosticate this group better and, ideally, allow individualized therapy adjust ments based on response depth in the future. Here, we review novel bone mar row, periph eral blood, and imag ing meth ods for assessing mye loma bur den and dis cuss the oppor tu ni ties and lim i ta tions of incor po rat ing these in every day clinical practice.