Combined Carfilzomib and Hydroxychloroquine in Patients With Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma
Summary
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a neoplastic expansion of bone marrow plasma cells. Despite advances in treatment in recent years, MM is still a fatal disease. MM is characterized by the ability of malignant cells to produce large amounts of monoclonal immunoglobulin. The secretion of these immunoglobulins can be detected as the "M-protein" in serum, and the measurement of the M-component is used both for diagnosis and to evaluate treatment response and relapse. The high load of secreted proteins in MM cells requires a efficient way to clear these proteins from the cells and targeting protein degradation is an important therapeutic target in MM. This is today done by inhibiting the proteasome, one of the two central ways cells can degrade proteins, by drugs named proteasome inhibitors (including bortezomib, ixazomib and carfilzomib). Patients become resistant to these drugs, and it is therefore likely that myeloma cells also utilise another important system for protein degradation, called autophagy. Pre-clinical studies have shown that the combination of the proteasome inhibitor carfilzomib and the autophagy inhibitor hydroxychloroquine increases myeloma cell death and that hydroxychloroquine is able to reverse MM cell resistance to carfilzomib. This is the rationale for this study, where the investigators add the autophagy inhibitor hydroxychloroquine to a standard regime of carfilzomib and dexamethasone, to determine a maximum tolerated dose of this combination and to study tolerability.
Timeline
- Start
- 2020-01-07
- Primary completion
- 2021-12-28
- Completion
- 2021-12-28
Drugs
| Evaluation | Drug | Modality | Dose | Route |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | Hydroxychloroquine | Small molecule | — | — |
| Background | Carfilzomib | Other / unclassified | — | — |
| Background | Dexamethasone | Small molecule | — | — |