Dr. Durie discusses the groundbreaking impact the International Myeloma Foundation project in Iceland, IStopMM, has on the face of myeloma and how we screen, treat, or prevent multiple myeloma at its earliest stages.
The BOTTOM LINE: The iStopMM project emphasizes that early screening can change the face of myeloma, enabling timely intervention and improving outcomes for patients by reducing complications and allowing for effective treatment.
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This week's Ask Dr. Durie is about the face of myeloma changing? And this comes from someone who was listening and paying attention to the presentations from the recent ASH meeting that was held in San Diego in December. The results from the Iceland project, the iStopMM project, were presented, and as part of those, the presenter indicated that maybe the face of myeloma is changing, and the reason that the presenter indicated that is because out of the 85,000 individuals screened for MGUS and Smoldering myeloma in Iceland, around 4,000 were found to have new monoclonal spikes either MGUS and smoldering.
And of those, a number have been tracked to see if they go on to subsequently develop myeloma. And the results of this evaluation were presented and were very, very interesting and important. The main point was that as patients are carefully followed and tracked, any change in status is noted rather quickly and before routinely, just with standard office visits.
And so the bottom line was that the occurrence of CRAB criteria was much less in individuals who had been screened versus the standard population. And so, this means that there was less increase in the blood calcium, less indication of renal or kidney damage, less anemia unless indication of bone damage. What was notable there is that some degree of bone change was often noted in patients who had gone on to develop myeloma.
However, in this case, the changes were very, very early and picked up with low-body CT and mostly before any symptoms or major changes in bone damage had occurred.
And so indeed, the new face of myeloma is a myeloma patient that has many fewer symptoms and signs of active disease. And so, this is tremendously important, obviously both for the patient who is having fewer problems, but also in the bigger picture because having come to attention, there is the option to intervene and start treatment earlier, which we know can produce optimal results.
And so, the BOTTOM LINE in this case is that, coming out of the iStopMM project, we are learning that the face of myeloma can change and that this can be important to save patients from developing dangerous complications and also to allow intervention that may produce optimal results.
Professor of Medicine, Hematologist/Oncologist, and Honoree MD at the University of Brussels, Dr. Brian G.M. Durie is a co-founder of the IMF and a member of the IMF Board of Directors.
