As a result, myeloma treatment needs to be interdisciplinary and requires a whole team of providers. Furthermore, it is our goal to improve your quality of life and help you to achieve milestones while on your journey, via access to cutting-edge treatment and clinical trials.
Together, we can change the way the world views myeloma. And short of a cause, Dr. Hillengass notes that all myeloma patients have had a precancerous condition called monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance. Return to homepage. Friday, March 26, - pm. Most older people with multiple myeloma are not even offered a transplant as an option, but the study found that the procedure improved survival in all age groups.
African-Americans have twice the incidence of multiple myeloma as white Americans, accounting for 1 out of every 5 people diagnosed with this cancer. Yet studies have found that African-Americans are less likely to get the newest therapies and more likely to have delays in treatment. They are also less likely to participate in clinical trials, which can give people early access to medication that might extend their survival or significantly improve their quality of life.
During a clinical trial of the multiple myeloma drug Ninlaro ixazomib , for instance, which was approved by the U.
Food and Drug Administration in , Black participants accounted for only 13 of the people involved. Together with the National Black Church Initiative , the society has launched a program called Myeloma Link , aimed at providing African-American communities with improved access to the best available treatments and clinical trials.
For people with multiple myeloma, the more experience their medical center or physician has with this rare kind of cancer, the better the prognosis. A study published in February in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that people treated for multiple myeloma at centers seeing 10 new patients per year had a 20 percent higher risk of death than those treated at centers seeing 40 new patients per year. Adding to the evidence, a study published in December in the journal Blood found that people with multiple myeloma who saw a specialist at a National Cancer Institute—designated comprehensive cancer center had better overall survival than those who saw a community oncologist.
By subscribing you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Health Topics. Health Tools. Multiple Myeloma. Reviewed: August 3, Medically Reviewed. Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking. For more information on survival rates and life expectancy click here. If you are lucky enough to have a general practitioner who picks up high protein in the blood and finds the disease early while it is smoldering, or stage one, you have won the Myeloma Lottery. Life expectancy of stage one disease is 3 times greater than if you have been found in stage three.
Treatment guidelines were published in November of with the express purpose of finding and treating the disease before it has progressed and causes end organ failure. A National Institute of health article states the intent of this clearly:. Indeed, screening, early detection and intervention have played a large part in the major curative advances that have been achieved in solid tumors whereas metastatic cancer remains incurable in these same malignancies.
It is, therefore, not surprising that MM remains incurable, in spite of all the advances in therapeutic interventions. Could it be because we are waiting too long — until metastatic myeloma occurs — to treat our patients?
In such a condition, watchful waiting may actually be more harmful to the patient than early intervention. To read the whole article click here! If you are one of the lucky ones who are found in the early stages of active myeloma or smoldering myeloma, you will have the luxury of time to understand the treatment options, find a myeloma specialist here a must or here , and plan to confront your disease before permanent end organ damage.
Rajkumar of Mayo Clinic did a wonderful job of explaining the new criteria for myeloma diagnosis , and you can read it if you click here. Irene Ghobrial is doing some great work to follow MGUS and smoldering stages of the disease, to develop treatments to cure, or at least prevent end organ damage. Click here to view a myeloma crowd interview with Dr. Ghobrial on the subject. Just as a note, the country of Iceland is testing all of its adult population over 40 to screen for MGUS, Smoldering, and active myeloma.
This is a future I pray we will all see where we could cost effectively find MM early and treat it before end organ damage. Click here or here to learn more about iStop MM. Morgan of UAMS said it best when he outlined his thoughts on the subject of awareness and delayed diagnosis. He believes the fact that it takes 3 to 6 months and more often 6 months from first symptoms to diagnosis is a bit of a scandal.
To make real inroads in the myeloma we need to get it diagnosed early before we have organ involvement. We need to make family doctors and family practitioners more aware of the disease.
They should do M spike and light chain tests on patients. This makes a lot of sense to Dr. It is really tragic when patients develop renal failure when awareness of myeloma by a General Practitioner might have allowed the patient to get a consult or treatment from a myeloma specialist. It is a disease that does not come on overnight but is years in the making. Patient organizations can make a difference. Like with Smoldering, there might be a non toxic and safe treatment for MGUS which would be a chemo prevention program.
He believe the future of Myeloma will be to get earlier diagnosis, safe treatments, chemo prevention strategy, regular screening for para protein, and early intervention.
This is the future we are striving to achieve. I have kidney damage, a good friend of mine has debilitating bone pain, others collapsed vertebrae, one suffers from a myeloma caused stroke, and many have died from delayed diagnosis. It is what could be! Some people are just plain lucky and are given a form of myeloma that is not that aggressive. In other words they have myeloma, but it happens to be smoldering myeloma. This form of the disease can be present in the patient but not show any outward symptoms.
It can remain in this mode for 5, 10, or even 20 years. The age of the patient is very important, in that you are 2 times more likely to survive if you were diagnosed at 49 years of age or less. The average age of the typical myeloma patient is You can read more on this subject if you click here.
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