Debunking Common Myeloma Misconceptions
Debunking Common Myeloma Misconceptions from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Myeloma expert Dr. Peter Forsberg discusses common misconceptions about the disease and explains who may have an increased risk for developing myeloma.
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:
Katherine:
Are there common misconceptions you hear when you see a new myeloma patient for the first time?
Dr. Forsberg:
Yeah, I think some of the more common questions that come up involve those questions like I mentioned about things like stage and understanding this unique characteristic to myeloma. Myeloma unfortunately remains an incurable disease in the year 2020. So, some of the questions come up regarding what prognosis or treatment approaches may entail. Certainly, going to not up-to-date sources can lead to a lot of misconceptions about what our options are and what our outlook might be for myeloma.
And certainly at times, patients wonder where the myeloma came from. Is there something that I did or that I was exposed to that was a real driver for me to develop this? That’s a really common question that comes up. And unfortunately, or fortunately, the answer is not really any that we know well about. So, let me rephrase. So, one question that comes up a lot is what may have caused the myeloma.
Is there something that someone did or was exposed to that drove the myeloma? And truthfully, at this point there aren’t a lot of drivers for myeloma that we know about. So, usually that’s something that can be a little hard to understand or to reconcile. But it is a type of disease that can, unfortunately, can affect anyone. It does get more common as people get older. But aside from some potential genetic impact or mild increased risk in family members and with certain ethnic groups. Not a lot of historical things that were done might drive the development of myeloma.
