March is Myeloma Awareness Month. multiple myeloma is the most common blood cancer in people over 45 years of age. It is the second most common blood cancer and the most common blood cancer in black people.
At present, there is no treatment to cure this disease.But like Dr. Josel Cook of the Mayo Clinic hematologistexplains that people are living longer due to recent advances in treatment. And if research into multiple myeloma continues, we may someday find a cure.
Journalists: Broadcast quality video (1:09) is available in the downloads at the end of this post. Courtesy: “Mayo Clinic News Network.” Please read the script.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer that begins in a type of white blood cell called a plasma cell that accumulates in the bone marrow.
“Some of these plasma cells mutate over time, become abnormal, and produce abnormal proteins. We call them immunoglobulins, and in our world we call them monoclonal proteins. “So that can cause damage over time,” he says. Cook.
The damage caused by multiple myeloma can cause problems such as: anemiabone pain, frequent infections, kidney failure.
“The treatment…we call it plasma cell-directed therapy,” Dr. Cook says. “This is a treatment that is specifically directed at the immune system, so typically he uses a combination of three or he four drugs.”
Other advances in treatment include: Bone marrow transplantationThis involves injecting your own stem cells after high-dose chemotherapy to rebuild and regenerate healthy bone marrow.
“We have seen new treatments such as: cartor chimeric antigen receptor-T cell therapy, where we take people’s T cells and engineer them to specifically recognize myeloma cells,” says Dr. Cook.
These advances continue to improve the prognosis for patients with multiple myeloma.
“A few years ago, people were saying the survival time was three to five years. And now I would say the median or average survival time is about 10 years or more.” Dr. Cook says. “Hopefully, we can extend the expected survival by more than 20 years and ultimately find a cure in my lifetime.”
