Whither Interferon for Myeloma and Other Hematologic Malignancies?

Multiple myeloma is one of the common hema-tologic malignancies now affecting approxi-mately 12 500 persons in the United States each year. The number of patients with this condition continues to increase as a result of more frequent screening with electrophoresis and more diagnoses among a progressively aging population. Despite in-tensive study of many treatments, including those supported by stem cell transplantation, overall sur-vival has not improved, and the disease remains incurable (1). Accordingly, the best available strat-egy has been to achieve a high frequency of remis-sion that can be sustained for several years, and then to repeatedly control relapsing disease with a series of effective and well-tolerated treatments. Since interferon-a became available 15 years ago