What Are Key Factors in Myeloma Treatment Decisions?
What Are Key Factors in Myeloma Treatment Decisions? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
Myeloma specialist Dr. Peter Forsberg explains the factors that he considers when making a treatment choice, including how treatment goals can vary from patient to patient.
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:
When deciding on a treatment approach with a patient, what do you take into account when making the decision?
Dr. Forsberg:
So, there are pretty substantial factors that may impact treatment decision with myeloma. Our goal in almost all patients is to try to get the myeloma under control. Usually when we diagnose myeloma, it’s pretty active. Often, it’s causing significant problems. So, our goal in all patients is trying to get the myeloma under control to some degree.
Now, how aggressive we may be towards that is impacted by a number of things. One of the most important ones is who the patient is. Myeloma is diagnosed, and it never develops in a vacuum. It always develops in a person and that person may have substantial other medical problems. They may be younger; they may be older. They may be more fit or more frail. So, those are all factors that may contribute to our initial treatment choice.
Because often, what we’re initially deciding on is how many medicines we may use initially to try to treat the myeloma. And our goal my be to try to push a little harder, to try to achieve the deepest possible remission. In those circumstances, in certain patients, we may incorporate things like a stem cell transplant as one of our second steps. In patients who are somewhat less robust, we may be thinking that our primary goal is just to achieve and maintain control of the myeloma.
But not necessarily pushing for the deepest possible remission. Balancing the potential side effects from medicines with the importance of stopping the negative affects that the myeloma drives.
Katherine:
Any talk about treatment goals and what that means?
Dr. Forsberg:
So, as I mentioned, treatment goals may be different person to person. It takes into consideration who the patient is, what their priorities may be. What’s important for them in terms of not only living with the myeloma, but their life in general. So, there are many patients where our goal is to achieve a very robust, very long duration remission.
And there may be other patients where our goal isn’t just to control the myeloma, but to minimize treatment-related side effects. So, our priorities may be somewhat different. But almost always, it is to prevent issues that may come up from the myeloma and we’re lucky that often times those treatment goals align with tools we’re able to bring to bear. Our medicines for myeloma can help us achieve the goals of treatment, whether that’s achieving the deepest possible remission and sustaining it or prioritizing quality of life across a very broad patient spectrum.
