Glancing through a list of recent “Blood” studies, I came upon a few interesting ones, which I don’t have time to read super carefully right now (after all, it’s THE WEEKEND! 🙂 )…but I thought I would go ahead anyway and post the links, for those of you who might be interested in giving them a go…

The first is titled “Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM): novel biological insights and development of early treatment strategies.” Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time know how STRONGLY I feel about the issue of doing chemo or any conventional EARLY treatments, especially in the absence of CRAB symptoms…But anyway, that’s not the point…

The point is to give you the link to this study, which I’ll do immediately: http://goo.gl/P42lR If you’d like to read the whole shebang (yes, available for free…ahhh, I just love that!!!), just click on “Full Text PDF” on the right…Incidentally, the type may look small, as it did on my computer, but you can enlarge it by pressing “+”…

I was surprised to find three “alternative” clinical studies listed in Table 3 (page 8 of 10). Wow, I wasn’t expecting that from a group of conventional doctors…Hmmm, an indication of the, er, changing times, perhaps? Nice! 😉 Here are the three alternative studies: 1. the curcumin vs placebo Australian trial (26 MGUS folks), 2. the green tea extract trial (17 MGUS and SMM folks) and 3. the Omega-3 fatty acid trial (48 MGUS, SMM and CLL folks). There is also a monoclonal antibody trial that looks interesting…But I know zip about it, except for what I have read about those thingies in various studies here and there…

The May 5 2011 edition of “Blood” published two “Consensus recommendations,” which were written by the International Myeloma Workshop folks. The first concerns risk stratification in multiple myeloma: http://goo.gl/U4gXW Again, click on Full Text PDF if you want to read the entire text. There are some interesting items here, especially for those of us who are interested in risk factors, which, in addition to the chromosome deletions (13 and so on), are also: high B2M, low albumin and high LDH (incredibly, LDH is not always tested…it should be, as should vitamin D levels…incidentally, I have had mine tested ever since I changed hematologists here in Italy, and mine has always been in the normal range, phew…). If your LDH has never been tested, please ask your doctor…

The same issue of “Blood” has another report that recommends the uniform reporting of clinical trials: http://goo.gl/muVHg Again, the full text is available online…

Okay, now I’m going back to my fab weekend…Tomorrow Stefano and I are driving to a vineyard near Greve in Chianti, south of Florence, where a friend of ours is playing jazz all day with his band, as part of “Cantine Aperte 2011,” which means “Open Wine Cellars 2011.” This is THE MOST important annual Italian wine event during which many wine producers open their usually-closed cellars to the public. It’s great, since you’re able to visit the vineyards and the cellars (inside castles, too)…And you can taste some great Chianti wine (and some typical local food, pecorino cheese and so on, if you’re lucky!), listen to concerts etc. Anyway, it’s usually lots and lots of fun, and the weather looks good…So we’re really looking forward to it. I’m taking my camera… 🙂