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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As with all things myeloma, the decision to safely discontinue myeloma maintenance therapy is based on risk or the odds of your MM returning. Let me explain.
As you read the info below, keep these 4 things in mind-
My takeaway of the study below is that if the NDMM patient is fortunate enough to reach MRD, they can stop therapy and be fairly confident that they will enjoy a longer than average first remission.
I am a MM survivor who lives with a host of long-term and late stage side effects. As you can imagine, I am biased toward less risk of side effects. Meaning, the sooner NDMM patients discontinue LDM, the lower the risk of side effects and the higher the quality of life.
As for NDMM patients who do not reach MRD, my guess would be that their oncologists will encourage them to remain on LDM for years if not forever. I firmly believe that it is up to the patient to weigh the risks and benefits of LDM in order to make their decision for how long, how high or low a dose, etc.
Are you a NDMM patient contemplating low-dose maintenance therapy? How much, how long, etc? I purposely have not mentioned evidence-based non-conventional therapies that may benefit the NDMM patient. If you would like to learn more email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com
Good luck,
“Multiple myeloma specialists have long questioned whether patients who respond well to upfront treatment need to be on maintenance therapy indefinitely, which is often the usual practice…
Research presented at the ASCO annual meeting showed that most patients with multiple myeloma can safely discontinue maintenance therapy if they have undetectable residual disease…
The majority of patients (85%) with undetectable residual disease at baseline were progression-free 3 years after discontinuing maintenance therapy, and that percentage improved even further to 93% when using a more sensitive test to detect measurable residual disease (MRD)…
High-risk cytogenetics was also associated with worse MRD-free survival…
Two patients (of the 47 total) developed secondary hematologic cancers — Hodgkin lymphomaand B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The patient with lymphoblastic leukemia died 2 years after discontinuation, the only death in the study…
By avoiding the considerable side effects of ongoing maintenance therapy with lenalidomide — which can include insomnia, diarrhea, pain, and secondary cancers — patients’ quality of life improved, and, overall, patients saved about $22.5 million on the cost of lenalidomide over 3 years…