The project will establish a core clinical consortium consisting of the University of Florida (UF) and Emory University (EU) for the performance of trials of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMTCTN) with participation in multiple ongoing trials and trials to be implemented in the next funding cycle. This will combine an established core center during the first 2 funding cycles with a proven track record of consistently meeting or exceeding all annual BMTCTN performance standards, exceeding target enrollment goals during the past 2 years, and providing leadership in a variety of BMTCTN committees and protocols with an affiliate center (EU) that has been a large affiliate center of the BMTCTN with a track record of substantial patient enrollment in BMTCTN trials and a commitment to expand enrollment. The advantage of the consortium is that together this core will be able to more than double its accrual to BMTCTN trials. The project will also propose a prospective phase III clinical trial to evaluate the optimal conditioning regimen for the first HSCT of myeloma patients testing the combination of high-dose melphalan plus bortezomib versus melphalan alone as conditioning prior to autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). This proposed protocol addresses one of the six high-priority research questions (relapse) identified in the 2007 BMT CTN State of Science Symposium and grew out of a pilot trial that originated from within the core consortium.
This project addresses the concern that few hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) patients, especially allogeneic HCT patients, enter clinical trials to explore strategies to improve outcomes. The proposed protocol addresses the fact that HSCT for multiple myeloma improves response rates and survival but rarely results in cure due to relapse. Better conditioning regimens offer the hope to improve responses and cure.
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