Recently Diagnosed or Relapsed? Stop Looking For a Miracle Cure, and Use Evidence-Based Therapies To Enhance Your Treatment and Prolong Your Remission
Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
Click the orange button to the right to learn more about what you can start doing today.
According to the top study linked and excerpted below, there is an increased risk of skin cancer for the multiple myeloma (MM) patient in years 1-5 following his/her diagnosis of MM. My read of the study is that it is the blood cancer itself that is increasing the MM patient’s skin cancer risk.
The point of this post is not to scare newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients. The point of this post is to:
Check your skin frequently (this may sound silly but I’m serious-I do it…)
Have your dermatologist biopsy any suspicious moles-
Undergo evidence-based but non-conventional, non-toxic therapies shown to reduce your risk of skin cancer.
I understand that managing MM alone is extremely difficult. Both emotionally and physically. Many of the evidence-based therapies shown to reduce skin cancer are the very same evidence-based but non-conventional therapies that have been shown to kill monoclonal proteins aka multiple myeloma.
Consider lifestyle changes such as:
Stay out of the sun
Include anti-angiogenic foods and supplements in your diet
Lifestyle therapies such as whole-body hyperthermia
I say “stay out of the sun” because I didn’t at first. I went skiing with my brother the winter after my ASCT. My oncologist hadn’t said anything about my increased risk of skin cancer. My face got fried after the very first day of skiing.
A diagnosis of multiple myeloma is about much more than surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Yes, conventional oncology is an important piece of the puzzle. But only a piece.
If you have any questions or comments scroll down the page, write a post and I will reply to you ASAP.
“Patients with multiple myeloma (MM) may be more likely to develop melanoma than the general population, according to a poster presented at 2022 American College of Mohs Surgery Annual Meeting. They also may face a higher overall but not melanomas-specific mortality rate, the findings showed…
Factors the researchers examined in this cohort of 177 men and 84 women included: sex, age at MM diagnosis, race, Hispanic origin, household income, urban versus rural geographic location, anatomic location of the tumor(s), Breslow thickness, all-cause mortality, melanoma-specific mortality, and survival duration.
The summary of that examination featured in the poster showed:
1. Melanoma incidence was higher in patients in the following categories:
12-119 months post-M/M diagnosis (P< .02)
Most races (P 0.001 for White, Black, and non-Hispanic patients)
Age 50-64 (p < .01)
Household income of $75.000 or greater (Observed/expected (O/E) ratio=1.51; P < .001)
Metropolitan counties (O/E=1.29: P< .001).
2. Melanoma patients with MM vs all melanomas demonstrated:
Thicker tumors, with 23.5% of Breslow depth >1 mm vs 16.2% (P< .001).
Independent predictors of melanoma-specific mortality including age of 80 years or older, White race, and tumors with Breslow depth >1 mm.
Increased all-cause mortality/shorter overall survival time (P< .001), but not melanoma-specific mortality.
A trend towards shorter overall survival (12.5 vs 32.9 months (P= .16).
Using this data, the authors concluded that, “Compared with the general population, patients with MM appear to demonstrate a higher incidence of melanoma and overall mortality.”
They also identified some other highlights. “Incidence trends were significant in female patients, White and Black race, non-Hispanic patients, patients with household incomes of $75,000 or more annually, and patients from metropolitan areas,” the authors wrote. Evaluated against all melanoma patients, those with MM were more likely to develop more melanomas on their trunks/extremities and to have thicker melanomas.
“The link between melanoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia and lymphomas had been previously reported, but little was known about the prevalence and characteristics of melanoma in multiple myeloma,” noted the authors. “Our study sought to better understand the diagnosis of melanoma among patients with multiple myeloma.”
“Importance: Hematopoietic cell transplantation has increased the survival of patients with several types of malignant hematologic disease and hematologic disorders; however, these patients have an increased risk of posttransplant cutaneous malignant neoplasms. Physicians should be aware of associated risk factors to provide appropriate patient screening and long-term care…
Findings: Patients who underwent hematopoietic cell transplantation had an increased risk of:
squamous cell carcinoma,
basal cell carcinoma,
and melanoma.
Factors such as primary disease, chronic graft-vs-host disease, prolonged immunosuppression, radiation exposure, light skin color, sex, and T-cell depletion are risk factors for cutaneous malignant neoplasms.
Conclusions and relevance: Given the increased risk of cutaneous malignant neoplasms in hematopoietic cell transplant recipients, this population should be educated on skin self-examination and pursue regular follow-up with dermatologists.”
This floored me. I had a Melanoma removed surgically a year or so before I was diagnosed with Myeloma. These obviously run together in some way, I never realized there was any sort of connection until now. Thank you David for sharing.
