The future treatment of Multiple Myeloma

Hello All my fellow Myeloma patients and support group friends, I received an article this night and could not help but post it here. I am a still recovering from a stem cell transplant and am on maintenance therapy for 8 more months. Seem to be doing great, but the constant underlying concern is the what if. The unknowns with MM can really hit hard at times, we went out to supper last evening with friends and had an interesting conversation concerning someone who has been recently diagnosed, without a transplant they were told 3-5 years, with the transplant many more could be added. Well what if the transplant was not fully effective like mine? When the drugs I am on now quit working, what happens next? As with most drugs that are currently being used, its not an issue of if they will quit,but when. This is a scary thought and has played hard on my heart this night, unfortunately it has coincided with the use of dexamethasone so I can't sleep, after reading this I am glad I could not. Multiple Myeloma has many new drugs in the pipeline, but these experts feel that ultimately there is long term survival with therapy and a cure on the horizon (wow) what a statement to make.

Please take a look at this link http://www.myelomabeacon.com/news/2013/05/24/future-multiple-myeloma-treatment/ and let me know your thoughts, I would love to see as many patients and family take the time too read this as need to. For me it provided great encouraging news, thanks for reading and pray for Gods speed in their research.

Rodney

very interesting. thanks for posting.

The article focuses much on protease inhibitors, combination therapies and targeted therapies based upon a patients DNA.

The targeted DNA approach is definitively already in practice at the Univ of Arkansas as an example. They have a large database of patients, the largest of myeloma patients in the world, and it enables them to group patients with certain DNA characteristics. Thus, it empowers them to have the ability to track how certain combination therapies and singular drug therapies work on patients with certain myeloma characteristics.

for example, I just relapsed after 9 years in remission and they sent my blood sample off to an external lab for testing to determine if the DNA characteristics of the myeloma was the same today as it was 9 years ago. Thus, if it does not respond to initial light treatment (as it is so mild at this point), they want to know what in their estimation is the best course of action given what the DNA profile shows.

I have to believe some other institutions are also doing this.

Thank you for posting this Rodney. It is quite encouraging and I, like you, am praying for God's speed in the research.