POMALIDOMIDE: A NOVEL PROMISING IMMUNOMODULATORY AGENT IN THE TREATMENT OF REFRACTORY AND RELAPSED MULTIPLE MYELOMA

Revival of thalidomide in the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM) has paved a path to search for compounds with increased antiangiogenic and anti-tumor effects, but decreased side-effects resulting in the development of thalidomide analogues .After lenalidomide, recently pomalidomide (3 amino thalidomide) has come up as a potential immunomodulatory drug (IMiD) which is found to be effective in relapsing and refractory MM. This novel agent has recently been approved by USFDA on 8 th February, 2013. Pomalidomide differs from existing immunomodulatory agents in being extremely potent and safe in comparison. Lack of cross resistance with the existing agents offers advantage for its use in MM not responding to thalidomide, lenalidomide and bortezomib. Manageable myelosuppression is the only demonstrable effect observed. This review elucidates the available evidence on efficacy and safety of this drug in refractory and relapsing MM after analyzing various studies of this drug. Searches of pubmed, Cochrane database, Medscape, Google and clinicaltrial.org were made for terms like pomalidomide, multiple myeloma, immunomodulatory drugs. KEY WORDS: Pomalidomide, multiple myeloma, thalidomide analogues, immunomodulatory drugs.