Multiple myeloma long can you live

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. Cancer Stat Facts: Myeloma. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program. Early Treatment of Smoldering Multiple Myeloma. Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

Treatments help patients have some normalcy Patients with multiple myeloma receive continuous treatments with phases of stronger and less-strong therapy, according to Dr. Find out more of what makes Roswell Park unique in treating multiple myeloma. Learn More. Featured Expert. Professor of Oncology and Internal Medicine. You would choose a brain surgeon over any other surgeon if you had a brain tumor, why would you not do the same for myeloma?

Find out how to find a myeloma specialist by clicking here or here. Myeloma specialists have access to drugs that other oncologists do not. Because they are the thought leaders, they are involved in clinical trials, and can obtain some drugs through other programs that lesser known oncologists do not have access to. Worse yet, oncologists who are not myeloma specialists may not even know that some of these drugs even exist. But these experts can get approval for initial therapy through clinical trials or other programs.

Or some specialists can use drugs that are only approved for relapse or secondary therapy options Daratumumab, Ixazomib, Krypolis and Pomalyst , and obtain approval to use them for newly diagnosed patients.

When you run out of options with the currently approved drugs, they can provide access to those that have done great in clinical trial, but are not currently available to the general public. Sometimes it is who you know! Myeloma patients seldom die from myeloma, they die from the complications from myeloma.

The number one complication is pneumonia, and others include infections, kidney failure, anemia, etc. This, therefore, brings me to the realization that supportive care for the treatment of the many complications of this disease may just be as important as the cancer treatment itself.

Or a great Defense supportive care is as important as the Offense cancer therapy. Anaissie has published a well-written example of an exceptional supportive care model. You can read this publication if you click here. To read my blog post on supportive care click here.

I also think the quality of care that you receive can be affected by the knowledge of the patient, and this can be obtained by doing your research on finding the best approaches to care by looking at the work of the best myeloma specialists on-line, and by going to great sites as listed in the Resource Section of www.

To find out how to get educated about multiple myeloma click here. In addition, joining a support group of the International Myeloma Foundation or the LLS Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Myeloma Society will provide more great information to improve your life expectancy. I have found that the average life expectancy of most of these support groups far out-performs the average.

Knowledge is power! Additional information on the benefits of support group membership can be found if you click here. With 30, new cases of multiple myeloma in the USA, we can estimate the total number of patients in just the USA at , If we can move the average life expectancy from 5. Many times more if we include the entire world. You all can help by getting this message out to the myeloma patient community though Facebook and Twitter.

Everyone knows someone who has myeloma or may have a friend or family member that can be helped by this information. Gary Petersen - Gary is a myeloma survivor and patient advocate. His work centers around helping patients live longer by helping them to find facilities who are beating the average survival statistics. These statistics can be confusing and may lead you to have more questions.

Talk with your doctor about how these numbers may apply to you, as he or she is familiar with your situation.