Interestingly, the risk for MGUS progression in the IgM group — 10.8 times higher than the general population — was higher than that seen in non-IgM patients — 5.7 times higher than the general population.
If you have been diagnosed with Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance, the studies linked and excerpted below confirm two things. First, your risk of progressing to full-blown multiple myeloma is low. This study chronicles people who have lived with this “blood disorder” for decades. Secondly, if you have been diagnosed with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, your risk of progressing to MM is more than 10 times higher than the general population.
To learn more about the evidence-based protocols you can follow to prevent your Pre-Myeloma from becoming Multiple Myeloma, please watch the short video below:
I am a long-term survivor of multiple myeloma. Though I was originally diagnosed with a single plasmacytoma, I skipped over the MGUS stage. But as an MM cancer coach, I work with many people who live with this blood disorder. While many of these patients have been told that they have a low risk of developing MM, the comment I hear routinely is that they “don’t want to watch and wait.”
Have you been diagnosed with MGUS or SMM? Please scroll down the page, post a question or comment and I will reply to you ASAP.
“Patients with a condition called monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, characterized by the presence of the abnormal monoclonal or M protein, have a small but persistent risk of multiple myeloma or related cancer, even after they’d been stable for 30 years, researchers found.
Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance is found in 3.2% and of people between 50 and 70, and in 5.3% of people 70 and older.
Previous small-scale studies reported that this blood disorder progresses into a blood cancer in 7% to 19% of patients after five to 10 years. But “the small numbers of patients or the short follow-up in these studies limit the reliability of these results,” investigators wrote.
Mayo Clinic researchers in Rochester, Minnesota, studied 1,384 MGUS patients to determine their risk of developing multiple myeloma or any related blood cancer. Patients had been diagnosed between 1960 and 1994 and were followed for a median of 34.1 years…
“Our study showed significant differences in the mode and risk of progression between patients with IgM MGUS and those with non-IgM MGUS,” researchers wrote.
And while the risk of progression of patients with IgM MGUS was 2% per year in the first 10 years after diagnosis, decreasing to 1% per year thereafter, patients with non-IgM MGUS showed no changes in the risk of progression during follow-up.
The results showed that the risk of progression was quite small — 1% per year — but persisted indefinitely. Compared to other general causes of death, the risk for progressing to blood cancer remained small.
Researchers also found that patients with MGUS live shorter lives compared to sex- and age-matched controls from the general population of Minnesota residents, but “the risk of progression to myeloma or a related disorder is much less than the competing risk of death due to other causes.”
“During 14,130 person-years of follow-up, MGUS progressed in 147 patients (11%), a rate that was 6.5 times as high as the rate in the control population…
Significant differences were noted in the risk of progression between patients with IgM MGUS and those with non-IgM MGUS. Overall survival was shorter among patients with MGUS than was expected in a matched control population.”
