Evolving Approaches to Myeloma Treatment: Staying Up-to-Date
Evolving Approaches to Myeloma Treatment: How to Stay Up-to-Date from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Multiple myeloma research is fast-moving and showing promise. Dr. Peter Forsberg, a myeloma specialist, provides an overview of the changing treatment landscape and shares resources for keeping up with the latest news. Need help speaking up? Download the Office Visit Planner and bring it to your next appointment here.
Dr. Peter Forsberg is assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and is a specialist in multiple myeloma. More about Dr. Forsberg here.
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Transcript:
Dr. Peter Forsberg:
I think research in multiple myeloma remains a really active area. It’s been a major evolution over the past 20 years. Myeloma’s been one of the real success stories of modern oncology in terms of how much research has translated into improved options for patients.
But, many new things continue to evolve. It can be challenging to feel like you’re abreast of what’s going on. I think there are great resources for patients. Organizations like the International Myeloma Foundation, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, or Leukemia and Lymphoma Society are good places for patients to start.
I also think that social media can be useful although those types of things can be a bit of a double-edged sword. I certainly find lots of things out via Twitter, and I think there’s a pretty active myeloma community in some of those areas, but you have to be a little bit careful about where you point your attention when you’re interacting with the internet. I think there can be lots of places where you might get less up to date or less thorough information and that can sometimes be concerning or challenging for patients So, I do think it is great that we have tools, but it is important to be thoughtful about how you approach them and trying to find good, reliable resources in that regard.
I think there’s a lot of really exciting things on the horizon. That’s gonna include using tools that we have in better ways. I think we’re gonna be expanding our approaches to how we treat newly diagnosed patients. It looks like we’ll be starting to use four-drug regimens in patients with newly-diagnosed myeloma in the near future, hopefully with ever-improving results. We’re gonna be more cutting edge in terms of how we test and measure disease, using things like minimal-residual disease testing in different and expanded ways.
And then there’s a number of immunotherapeutic treatments especially that are looking very promising in relapsed myeloma.
That includes CAR T-Cell therapies, bispecific monoclonal antibodies, and antibody drug conjugates, all of them look like really promising approaches and really new things that hopefully in the not-distant future are gonna expand our toolbox for how we’re able to help maintain and improve life for patients with multiple myeloma.
