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.
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Cardiac Risks for Myeloma
Cardiac risks for myeloma patients is greater than you might think, according to the articles linked below. Newly diagnosed MM patients are older, as a group. The average age of a NDMM patient is 70 years of age.
If you smoke, and your MM is advanced, according to the article below, your oncologist should be more careful about prescribing many of the cardiotoxic chemo regimens. Several chemotherapy regimens for multiple myeloma are cardiotoxic, with proteasome inhibitors (like carfilzomib and bortezomib), anthracyclines (like doxorubicin), alkylating agents (like cyclophosphamide and melphalan), and immunomodulatory drugs (like lenalidomide and pomalidomide) all carrying cardiac risks.
Heart Damage as a Symptom and Side Effect of Multiple Myeloma
Because of my own chemotherapy-induced cardiomyopathy, I supplement with many different non-conventional heart healthy therapies. Because heart healthy therapies such as CoQ10 have not been trialed, there is no evidence for this supplement as a prophylactic therapy to protect the NDMM patient with heart problems.
Are you a MM patient or survivor? Do you have heart problems? Are you worried about cardiotoxic MM therapies? Let me know. Email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com and I will reply to you ASAP.
Hang in there,
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Analysis of Risk Factors for Major Adverse Cardiac Events in Patients with Multiple Myeloma
Objective: To identify risk factors for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and to evaluate the performance of an external risk-score–based stratification.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 162 newly diagnosed MM patients treated at Qingdao University Affiliated Hospital (2017–2023). Baseline demographics, comorbidities, laboratory and echocardiographic indices, and treatment exposures were collected.
MACE-
- heart failure,
- acute coronary syndrome,
- malignant arrhythmias,
- cardiogenic shock,
- or cardiac sudden death
were adjudicated during therapy. Multivariable logistic regression identified independent risk factors. Progression-free survival (PFS) was compared by Kaplan–Meier analysis.
An externally derived 0–4 point cardiovascular risk score was applied and patients were grouped as
- low (0–1),
- intermediate (2),
- or high (3–4) risk.
Results: MACE occurred in 31/162 patients (19.14%). Independent risk factors included
- age at diagnosis (OR = 1.059 per year),
- cigarette smoking (OR = 3.652),
- anthracycline exposure (OR = 5.850),
- and ISS stage III (OR = 2.593; 95% CI 1.108– 6.067; all P<0.05).
Using the external risk score, 79, 54, and 29 patients were classified as low, intermediate, and high risk, respectively, with a stepwise rise in MACE incidence from
- ≈15% (low) to
- ≈18% (intermediate) and
- ≈31% (high).
Discrimination of the score for MACE was modest (ROC AUC = 0.594). Patients experiencing MACE had significantly shorter PFS.
Conclusion: Age, smoking, anthracycline use, and ISS stage III independently predict MACE in MM. External risk-score stratification demonstrates a clear gradient of risk but only modest discrimination, underscoring the need for prospective validation and optimization (e.g., integrating disease stage and treatment exposures).
These findings support proactive cardio-oncology assessment and tailored therapy—particularly in older, smoking, ISS III, and anthracycline-treated patients.
Cardiac risks for myeloma Cardiac risks for myeloma Cardiac risks for myeloma