Multiple myeloma treatment is like lawn care. This statement sounds strange. But a leading myeloma specialist says it is true. When Dr. Sid Ganguly sees patients in his home state of Kansas, he likes to tell them, “Taking care of multiple myeloma is almost like taking care of your backyard.” Ganguly is Director of the Lymphoma/Myeloma Program at Kansas University Medical Center.
Ganguly says an initial diagnosis of multiple myeloma in your bone marrow is like coming home to an unkempt lawn. “Five six years ago you had a fantastic green lawn, and now you see dandelions and weeds in your lawn,” says Ganguly. To take care of your lawn, you might visit a hardware store, speak to a gardening specialist, and grab some weed killers and other chemicals. For your multiple myeloma, you visit an oncologist who’ll prescribe you a combination of drugs and advise you on treatment.
Read More “Your oncologist is a
master gardener,” says Ganguly. They will choose a
combination drug therapy to reduce the number of myeloma cells in your bone marrow, just as a gardener would use pesticides and chemicals to kill the weeds in your lawn. After the number of myeloma cells in your body have been reduced significantly, you will see a
transplant doctor. “The transplanter is a
lawn renovator,” says Ganguly. They will
collect stem cells from your bone marrow, “aka collect grass seeds from your backyard.” Then you will be given a high dosage of
Melphalan, a chemotherapy, which kills the bone marrow in your cells and also clears out your existing healthy stem cells. Continuing the analogy, Dr. Ganguly says, “So the backyard now has all the dandelions gone, hopefully the roots are also gone, but the green grass is also gone. So now you have a barren backyard.” To replenish your bone marrow’s stem cells, they will give you a transfusion of your previously collected stem cells. In other words, they will have “reseeded the backyard.” Within two weeks, your stem cells will have grown, rejuvenating your bone marrow. “After that, we start you on a
lawn maintenance program,” says Ganguly. For multiple myeloma, this is
maintenance therapy, where you stay on low doses of medications going forward to keep your myeloma at bay. Hopefully, this keeps your bone marrow–your “lawn”–healthy and disease-free for years to come. In short, Multiple myeloma treatment really is like lawn care.
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Dr. Siddhartha Ganguly is a Multiple Myeloma Specialist at the University of Kansas. Read More
