[Beacon Staff]

–► Please READ THIS before posting in this part of the forum

by Beacon Staff on Sat Nov 01, 2014 10:03 pm

This part of the Beacon's discussion forum is for questions and discussions that may help people determine if they, or someone they know, have multiple myeloma, smoldering multiple myeloma, or MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance).

We are sorry that you, or someone close to you, has symptoms or lab results that suggest a potential multiple myeloma or MGUS diagnosis.

However, before you post a question or start a discussion here, please read the rest of this post. More importantly, please take some time to review other postings that are in this part of the forum. If you page through the other postings, you very likely will find someone else who has asked a ques­tion or started a discussion similar to yours.

By reading some of the other questions and discussions here, you will learn which blood and imaging tests are important for determining if someone has multiple myeloma or MGUS. You also will learn that there are very specific criteria for a multiple myeloma diag­no­sis, and these criteria involve the results of blood and/or urine tests results and x-rays or MRIs. (For more information, see this summary of the criteria for a multiple myeloma diagnosis. If you need more information, see this this article about the criteria for a multiple myeloma diag­no­sis and sum­maries in this forum of the diag­nostic criteria for smoldering multiple myeloma and the diag­nostic criteria for MGUS.)

Please note, as well, that three simple blood tests – the serum immunofixation electrophoresis (sIFE or IFE), the serum protein electrophoresis (SPEP), and the serum free light chain test (sFLC) – are the key to determining whether someone does or does not have multiple mye­lo­ma. In people eventually diagnosed with multiple myeloma, these three tests will indicate that a myeloma diagnosis is likely in all but 1-2 percent of cases. Even in those 1-2 percent of cases where the three tests do not signal a multiple myeloma diagnosis, the patient will have other clear signs of multiple myeloma, including either anemia, elevated calcium and/or creatinine levels in the blood, or bone lesions detected by x-rays or MRI.

Thus, if you are worried that you or someone you know may have multiple myeloma, a very simple and inexpensive way to test whether this is true is to have serum immunofixation, serum protein electrophoresis, and serum free light chain testing done.

You may find it helpful to search the forum to see if there are previous discussions on specific topics you are interested in. Your searching will be more successful if you type single key­words – such as "hemoglobin", "calcium", "creatinine", "SPEP", "kappa", or "lambda" – into the forum search box, rather than phrases or more than a single keyword.

Please note that this part of the forum is for questions related to multiple myeloma, smoldering multiple myeloma, and MGUS. It is not intended as a venue for general help and discussion related to any lab or imaging results.

Likewise, the Beacon Staff will not approve postings for this part of the forum that provide little or no background information, nor will postings be approved if they indicate that the forum member has not taken time to review previous questions and discussions in this forum that might be relevant to the topic the member wishes to discuss.