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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Manage Myeloma with Less

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To manage myeloma with less- less chemo, less radiation, less treatment in general, is an approach that has been practiced in the United States for years. The challenge is that the FDA approved standard-of-care is a high-dose, aggressive  approach- a one-size fits all approach to all newly diagnosed MM patients. 

The challenge that the average MM patient faces, is that they will be pushed to be treated aggressively by their oncologies unless:

  • they are elderly or frail
  • they have co-morbidities (health problems)
  • or are experiencing significant side effects from prior treatment

What is a “low-dose” approach to treating multiple myeloma?

  1. Reduced Chemotherapy Doses: Using lower doses of conventional chemotherapeutic drugs can help reduce the intensity of side effects such as nausea, fatigue, and bone marrow suppression.
  2. Combination Therapy: Often, a low-dose approach may involve the use of multiple drugs at lower doses rather than a high dose of a single agent. This can help to achieve a synergistic effect where the combined action of the drugs is effective against the myeloma cells while limiting toxicity.
  3. Maintenance Therapy: Low-dose treatment is sometimes used as maintenance therapy after an initial response to higher-dose treatment. The aim is to keep the disease under control and prolong remission with minimal adverse effects.
  4. Use of Novel Agents: Incorporating newer, targeted therapies (such as proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, and monoclonal antibodies) at low doses. These agents can be effective at lower doses and tend to have different and sometimes less severe side effect profiles compared to traditional chemotherapy.
  5. Patient-Specific Factors: Tailoring the treatment to the individual patient’s overall health, age, and comorbid conditions. This personalized approach can help optimize the balance between efficacy and tolerability.
  6. Monitoring and Adjustment: Regular monitoring of the patient’s response to treatment and side effects. Dosages can be adjusted based on the patient’s tolerance and the effectiveness of the therapy.

Examples of drugs used in a low-dose approach for multiple myeloma include:

  • Melphalan: An alkylating agent that can be used at lower doses, especially in elderly or frail patients.
  • Prednisone or Dexamethasone: Steroids that can be effective at lower doses for reducing inflammation and killing myeloma cells.
  • Lenalidomide (Revlimid) and Thalidomide: Immunomodulatory drugs that can be used at reduced doses in combination with other therapies.
  • Bortezomib (Velcade): A proteasome inhibitor often used in lower doses to minimize peripheral neuropathy.

I must point out that I firmly believe that specific myeloma patients can benefit from an aggressive therapy plan. I believe that it is the FDA SOC one-size-fits-all approach that encourages oncologists to pursue a “maximum tolerated dose” approach to treatment.

The average general oncologist, probably even the average hematologist/oncologist has little if any experience with myeloma, as rare as it it. So naturally they turn to FDA approved standards.

This is why I quote the world-renowned MM expert, Dr. Vincent Rajkumar and his essay titled Treatment of Myeloma- The Cure versus Control Debate. 

In my experinece, conventional oncology can pursue any therapy plan that you, the patent, wants. The article linked below cites studies of three different cancers but the concept is the same.

If you want to manage myeloma with less, you, the patient may need to present sound reasoning why they want to manage myeloma with less but the fact remains that the patient makes all treatment decisions regarding their own bodies.

If you’d like to learn how to manage myeloma with less, email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com

Thank you,

David Emerson

  • MM Survivor
  • MM Cancer Coach
  • Director PeopleBeatingCancer

Cancer patients often do better with less intensive treatment, new research finds

“Scaling back treatment for three kinds of cancer can make life easier for patients without compromising outcomes, doctors reported at the world’s largest cancer conference…

It’s part of a long-term trend toward studying whether doing less — less surgery, less chemotherapy or less radiation — can help patients live longer and feel better. The latest studies involved

  • ovarian and
  • esophageal cancer
  • and Hodgkin lymphoma…

Thirty years ago, cancer research was about doing more, not less. In one sobering example, women with advanced breast cancer were pushed to the brink of death with massive doses of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. The approach didn’t work any better than chemotherapy and patients suffered…

Now, in a quest to optimize cancer care, researchers are asking: “Do we need all that treatment that we have used in the past?”

It’s a question, “that should be asked over and over again,” said Dr. Tatjana Kolevska, medical director for the Kaiser Permanente National Cancer Excellence Program, who was not involved in the new research…

Often, doing less works because of improved drugs.

“The good news is that cancer treatment is not only becoming more effective, it’s becoming easier to tolerate and associated with less short-term and long-term complications,” said Dr. William G. Nelson of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was also not involved in the new research…

OVARIAN CANCER

French researchers found that it’s safe to avoid removing lymph nodes that appear healthy during surgery for advanced ovarian cancer. The study compared the results for 379 patients — half had their lymph nodes removed and half did not. After nine years, there was no difference in how long the patients lived and those with less-extreme surgery had fewer complications, such as the need for blood transfusions. The research was funded by the National Institute of Cancer in France.

ESOPHAGEAL CANCER

This German study looked at 438 people with a type of cancer of the esophagus that can be treated with surgery. Half received a common treatment plan that included chemotherapy and surgery on the esophagus, the tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach. Half got another approach that includes radiation too. Both techniques are considered standard. Which one patients get can depend on where they get treatment.

After three years, 57% of those who got chemo and surgery were alive, compared to 51% of those who got chemo, surgery and radiation. The German Research Foundation funded the study.

HODGKIN LYMPHOMA

A comparison of two chemotherapy regimens for advanced Hodgkin lymphoma found the less intensive treatment was more effective for the blood cancer and caused fewer side effects…”

 

 

 

 

 

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