The Top 5 Most-Read Multiple Myeloma Content of 2025

The Top 5 Most-Read MM Content of 2025

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From breakthrough insights in immunology to deeply personal reflections on patient-centered care, this year’s most-read multiple myeloma (MM) stories captured both the rapid scientific progress and the human realities shaping the field. In 2025, readers gravitated toward research that redefined infection risks, clarified vaccine responses, and pushed the limits of precision medicine, alongside expert perspectives on tailoring treatment and honoring patient priorities. Together, these top 5 pieces highlight a disease landscape evolving faster than ever, with innovation, equity, and individualized care emerging as guiding themes.

5. Study Advocates Immunological Value of COVID-19 Vaccination in MM

Although patients with MM on lenalidomide maintenance therapy produce fewer antibodies, they mount strong T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination—often stronger than those of healthy controls. Researchers analyzed 41 patients with MM and 43 healthy individuals and observed that, despite impaired B-cell function and reduced antibody levels, vaccinated patients with MM showed robust CD4+ and CD8+ activation, regardless of prior COVID-19 infection or whether they paused lenalidomide around vaccination. The findings highlight the protective value of vaccination in this immunocompromised population and suggest that stopping lenalidomide before vaccination is unnecessary, underscoring the need for more trials to explore T-cell–based vaccine responses in MM.

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4. Honoring Patient Wishes in Myeloma Treatment Journeys

In this discussion, Don M. Benson, MD, PhD, of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, describes how he navigates conversations with patients with MM when quality-of-life priorities sometimes diverge from treatment goals. He emphasizes that patient preferences evolve across the disease course; survival dominates at diagnosis and relapse, but during remission, factors such as energy, independence, and freedom often become paramount. Benson illustrates how he individualizes care, from adjusting maintenance therapy expectations to delaying a stem cell transplant so a patient could attend his daughter’s wedding feeling like himself. He reflects on the privilege of caring for people facing an incurable cancer, noting that his patients have taught him profound lessons about life, love, and resilience.

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3. On the Path to Greater Precision in Treating Multiple Myeloma

Over the past 2 decades, MM care has transformed from limited chemotherapy-based options to nearly 20 advanced therapies, dramatically extending survival and opening the door to more personalized, AI-driven approaches. Yet despite rapid innovation with new quadruplets, bispecifics, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, and efforts to treat earlier disease, experts explain that a true cure remains out of reach and inequities persist, especially for Black patients and those treated in community settings. Leaders from the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation and International Myeloma Foundation highlight initiatives focused on expanding trial diversity, improving access, and using large data platforms and adaptive trials to optimize sequencing, understand why therapies fail, and accelerate discovery. With more treatments and tests on the horizon, from Measurable Residual Disease (MRD)-guided care to potential population-level screening, the field is steadily moving toward longer survival, though researchers stress that continued progress and equitable access are essential.

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2. Tailored Dosing for MM Matters More Than Drug Count: Ajai Chari, MD

For transplant-ineligible patients with MM, how therapies are dosed may matter more than how many drugs are used, Ajai Chari, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, explains. Citing the MAIA (NCT02252172) trial’s unprecedented 5-year overall survival with daratumumab, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (DRd) in an older population, Chari argues that DRd’s tolerability makes it a strong frontline option. He also notes challenges such as high-risk disease, cost, and limited post-progression options after prolonged use. As studies test adding a fourth agent to DRd, Chari cautions that not all frail or older patients benefit from additional toxicity risks. Instead, he advocates for personalized, patient-centered dosing—reducing dexamethasone early, adjusting lenalidomide, limiting bortezomib to weekly use, and leveraging daratumumab’s low toxicity—to balance efficacy and safety. This tailored approach, he says, helps control disease and alleviate CRAB symptoms (calcium elevation, renal dysfunction, anemia, and bone disease), as well as improve quality of life as the field moves toward optimized quadruplet strategies.

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1. High Infection Risk in MM: Insights From the Preimmunotherapy Era

Patients with MM face a significantly heightened risk of infections, and a population-based study underscores the scale of this vulnerability. Analyzing data from more than 8600 patients diagnosed between 2008 and 2021, researchers found that individuals with MM had a 70% infection rate, which is more than double that of matched controls, and a 5-fold higher overall infection risk. Sepsis and pneumonia were the most common infections, and patients showed elevated infection risk even years before diagnosis. Infection-related mortality remained substantial, with 27% of patients dying from infections within a year, and far higher short-term mortality following serious infections compared with controls. The findings highlight the urgent need for stronger infection prevention strategies as MM treatments become increasingly continuous and immunosuppressive.

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