[Roger]

Best treatment for smoldering myeloma?

by Roger on Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:52 pm

What is the best early treatment for smoldering myeloma? I have no symptoms like bone lesions except for it showing up in my blood work. I am having a bone marrow biopsy next week.

[Multibilly]

Re: Best treatment for smoldering myeloma?

by Multibilly on Thu Jan 09, 2014 5:06 pm

Hi Roger,

Well, if you haven't had a biopsy yet, you must have only a preliminary/pending diagnosis at this point. To be clear, your current results show that you have no CRAB (hyperCalcemia, Renal (kidney) issues, Anemia, Bone lesions) issues, right?

If you are SMM, you very well may never progress to symptomatic multiple myeloma, and may therefore never need treatment.

Right now, the general rule is that one doesn't treat SMM. However, there are trials and discussions that are ongoing regarding treating high risk SMM patients before they become symptomatic. But the data isn't yet in on whether the medical industry should recommend treating high risk SMM patients going forward.

In your case, you won't know your classification until you have the genetic test results from your bone marrow biopsy procedure. If you do end up coming back as being high risk, folks on the forum can point you to the discussions and trials that are investigating early drug treatment and you can start to investigate if you want to pursue this approach or not.

In the meantime, are you working with an oncologist that sees many multiple myeloma patients on a daily basis that can discuss this further with you? This is the single most important thing you can be doing at this point if your doc isn't already one of these specialists. General oncologists/hematologists often don't know that much about the latest thinking regarding multiple myeloma.

Best of luck to you.