Types of Bone Cancer Myeloma

types of bone cancer myeloma via en.wikipedia.org

Hello my name is Raja Kumar I am a professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic I am part of the myeloma team here at the clinic who takes care of patients with multiple myeloma and

related diseases so multiple myeloma is a cancer of a certain type of white blood cells now we

 all have several different types of white blood cells the common function of white blood cells

is to try and attack the various infectious organisms that can invade the body now the

particular type of white cell white cells that are responsible for multiple myeloma are called

plasma cells become the function of plasma cells is to make proteins called antibodies which

helps our body fight infections the reason why patients develop multiple myeloma is not well

 known at this time however we have learned a lot about this particular cancer and we realize

 that multiple myeloma is probably not a single type of cancer but a collection of different

 types of cancers all of which affect the plasma cells so the triggers that makes the plasma cell cancerous may be different particularly the genetic abnormality that initiates the

development of cancer may be different in the different types of myelomas given the changes

 that have happened in this disease in the past decade it is important that patients with

multiple myeloma see a specialist who deals with this disease more often it is not necessary

that all the treatments have to be done by a specialist but it is good to have a specialist at

least take a look at the characteristics of the disease and formulate a treatment plan that

which can be then carried out in collaboration with the primary hematologist who in most of

 the time would be much closer for the patient and logistically easier there's approximately

20,000 patients diagnosed in this country each year with this particular cancer patients with

 multiple myeloma are living a lot longer than what they used to 10 or 15 years ago in fact

the survival of patients with myeloma have more than tripled in the past ten years now there

 are several reasons for this we are using autologous stem cell transplantation for treating

 multiple myeloma much more uniformly in addition to that and probably more important

than that there are several new medications that have been introduced for treatment of

 patients with multiple myeloma now what has happened in this disease is a combination of

 the introduction of new therapies as well as a better understanding of the biology of this

 disease we have a better understanding of which patients are likely to do well with this

diagnosis and which patients need particular attention because their myeloma is aggressive to

this extent we have identified several genetic abnormalities that can be seen in the multiple

myeloma cells which helps us to identify those patients ahead of time right at the time of

diagnosis now these particular type patients need a special attention especially in terms of the
type of treatments we would like to use we have developed very detailed treatment strategies

for patients with multiple myeloma based on the particular risk category that we put those

patients in based on the genetic abnormalities that we can find some of this information is

available on the web at the website M smart dot o-r-g this particular website has lot of

treatment details which we as a team continuously review and continue to update based on

 information as and when they become available the treatment options in multiple myeloma

as I mentioned have significantly changed what has changed is the introduction of two very

 effective class of medications one of them here is called protease on inhibitors and the first

medication in that group of medications was a drug called bortezomib or Velcade the other

 class of medications that have been introduced are what we call the amino modulate ray drugs

 and the second class of drug have all been derived from a medication called thalidomide now

the thalidomide was something that has been around for a long time but it's used in myeloma

was only discovered about ten or twelve years ago now the both these classes of drugs are very

 effective in treating multiple myeloma and we use them either alone or in combination with

 other drugs in both in patients with myeloma that have recently been diagnosed asuras in

myeloma that have relapsed after prior treatments now all these medications do come with

some side effects but overall these medications are reasonably well tolerated so compared to

ten 12 years ago when autologous stem cell transplantation and a particular drug called mal

felon were the mainstays of treatment for multiple myeloma today we have a huge

 armamentarium of drugs that can be used for treating this disease now this includes the drugs

that I just mentioned as well as two other drugs which were recently approved for treatment

of multiple myeloma the first drug is called car fills a map or Cabrales and this belongs to the

 class of medications called protease inhibitors which are similar to the bortezomib or Velcade

 the second drug that was approved recently is called pomalidomide or pomalyst which belongs

 to the group of immunomodulatory drugs and both these drugs have been shown to be quite

effective in treating myeloma that have relapsed after previous therapies now in addition to

 this there are several other clinical trials that are ongoing which are evaluating a whole host

of very exciting drugs not only are these new drugs belonging to the same class of drugs that

we have been using all these years but we also have several drugs that bill two totally different

 class of drugs now this is a very important point multiple myeloma cells eventually become

 resistant to the different therapies that we use none of the therapies that we used today in the clinic are curative that means this myeloma will eventually come back and these cells will

 eventually become processing with the medications that we are using currently so it is very

important that we continue to develop new drugs especially drugs that work through different

 mechanisms so that they can overcome the resistance mechanisms that these myeloma cells

have developed while they are being exposed to these currently available drugs again going

back to the point of being seen by a specialist also import is important from the point of view

of having access to new clinical trials now if Center like Mayo Clinic which specializes in rarer types of cancers especially cancers like multiple myeloma we have clinical trials with several

of these new drugs available for use in in patients who have relapsed after the currently

available treatments even if patients are not eligible for going on a clinical trial there is a

second opinion will allow the patient to get the opportunity to consider alternative treatment

regiments that may not have been considered or combination of therapies that have

previously been treated which could still be of benefit even though the patients have stopped

 responding to one or other of these individual drugs we will have access to new drugs through

clinical trials for treating patients with multiple myeloma we will also have increasing numbers

of tools available in the clinic to get a better sense of which patients are going to do better it

is important continue with our con going research in this disease so as we can continue to

 identify why some patients with multiple myeloma do not do well so that we can develop new

strategies for treating these patients to this end we have a large amount of research that is

ongoing at Mayo Clinic where we study how patients have done so far we obtained blood and

bone marrow samples from patients with multiple myeloma various changes of their disease to

 better understand why patients develop multiple myeloma in the first place but also why

 multiple myeloma becomes resistant to therapies and devise new ways of treating this

particular disease it's specifically going into the various treatment options that we have we

take particular pride in trying to understand how new drugs may develop in make help patients

 with multiple myeloma by looking at these new drugs in the laboratory against myeloma cell

lines as well as patient myeloma cells now those drugs that we find find to be very promising

in the laboratory we try to take them forward into clinical trials both small clinical trials are

 specifically looking at various stages of the disease that we do at the in the clinic but also

large-scale clinical trials where we are comparing these new therapies against all the therapies

now clearly these large trails cannot be done in one institution so we partner with other

institutions as well as take part in large cooperative groups where these large trials can be done

 by enrolling large number of patients and answering critical questions as to what drugs hold

promise for the future so clearly the eve the paradigm has changed patients with myeloma

living longer there are more treatment options and it's continuing to improve and I am sure

the day were multiple myeloma becomes a chronic disease is in too far away and hopefully the

 the time where we can say that we will be able to cure this disease should shortly follow thereafter. Next Rare Type of Bone Cancer: Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment

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multiple myeloma causes, multiple myeloma prognosis, multiple myeloma diagnosis, multiple myeloma stages, multiple myeloma treatment, multiple myeloma life expectancy, multiple myeloma symptoms, is multiple myeloma hereditary
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