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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Infection vs. Myeloma 50/50
Infections and myeloma are equally matched adversaries. According to research infections vs. myeloma is a 50/50 battle. As many MM patients die of infection as die from MM.
Myeloma damages the patient’s bones, kidneys, blood, etc. Myeloma eventually becomes resistant to all forms of chemotherapy causing a state of multi drug resistance (MDR).
However, infection is equally deadly for myeloma patients. Myeloma itself causes the patient to be immunocompromised and conventional therapies such as chemo and ASCT weaken the myeloma patient’s immune system further.
By the time the myeloma patient has relapsed repeatedly, their immune system can be too weak to fight opportunistic infections.
I am a long-term MM survivor. A layman. Not any sort of medical professional. But as I see it, in myeloma in particular, fighting plasma cells (MM) is as much of a priority as managing the patient’s immune health.
Chemotherapy can weaken the immune system
The research below makes the argument that increasingly aggressive conventional therapy has increased the number of MM patients with seriously compromised immune systems.
What’s a myeloma patient to do?
Consider immune enhancing therapies such as acupuncture, nutritional supplements and lifestyle therapies show to boost the immune system.
Email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com with your questions about enhancing your immune system.
Good luck,
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Multiple myeloma and infections: a population-based study on 9253 multiple myeloma patients
Infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with multiple myeloma…
Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the risk of infections. Overall, multiple myeloma patients had a 7-fold (hazard ratio =7.1; 95% confidence interval = 6.8–7.4) risk of developing any infection compared to matched controls.
The increased risk of developing a:
- bacterial infection was 7-fold (7.1; 6.8–7.4),
- and for viral infections 10-fold (10.0; 8.9–11.4).
Multiple myeloma patients diagnosed in the more recent calendar periods had significantly higher risk of infections compared to controls (P<0.001). At one year of follow up, infection was the underlying cause in 22% of deaths in multiple myeloma patients.
Mortality due to infections remained constant during the study period. Our findings confirm that infections represent a major threat to multiple myeloma patients. The effect on infectious complications due to novel drugs introduced in the treatment of multiple myeloma needs to be established and trials on prophylactic measures are needed…
Infections are a significant cause of morbidity and a leading cause of death in MM patients.5,6 In a study of over 3000 MM patients, Augustson and co-workers observed that 45% of early deaths (within 6 months) were due to infections.7
MM-related immunodeficiency involves B-cell dysfunction, such as hypogammaglobulinemia, as well as T-cell, dendritic cell, and NK-cell abnormalities.8
In addition to the inherent immunodeficiency, some small studies have described a changing spectrum of infections in MM, possibly related to the more intensive treatment approach of recent years, suggesting that the novel agents may increase the risk of infections in MM patients.13–16 Several studies have indicated that elderly MM patients in particular are highly susceptible to infections.17….
Using the nationwide Cause of Death registry, we obtained information on date and cause of death for all subjects (MM patients and controls) who had died up to December 31, 2007. Approval was obtained from the Stockholm Ethical Review Board for this study. Informed consent was waived because we had no contact with study subjects…
Specifically, MM patients had an increased risk of the following bacterial infections compared to matched controls:
- meningitis,
- septicemia,
- pneumonia,
- endocarditis ,
- osteomyelitis,
- cellulitis, and
- pyelonephritis.
Multiple myeloma patients had a significantly increased risk of the viral infections:
- herpes zoster
- and influenza
compared to matched controls. The risk of all included infections was highest during the first year following MM diagnosis…
Compared to patients diagnosed during the period 1988–1993, MM patients diagnosed during the time periods 1994–1999 and 2000–2004 had a significantly higher risk of infections…
We, therefore, argue that the introduction of HDM-ASCT and novel agents both contribute to the increase in infections observed in our study. It has previously been suggested, that the novel agents, probably through their effect on the immune system, make MM patients more susceptible to infections.13–16…
In summary, in this large population-based study from Sweden we found bacterial and viral infections represent a major threat to MM patients. We found risk of specific infections, like pneumonia and septicemia, to be over 10-fold higher than for controls in the first year after MM diagnosis, and the risk of infections has been increasing in recent years.
The risk of dying from an infection is significantly elevated for an MM patient compared to age-matched controls. With the introduction of the novel therapies, survival of MM patients has improved. However, the effect of these drugs on the risk of infection remains to be established and new trials on prophylactic measures are needed…”
Infection vs. Myeloma Infection vs. Myeloma Infection vs. Myeloma