Myth Busting: Multiple Myeloma — Age, Prevalence, Clinical Trials

Although multiple myeloma is typically diagnosed when people are in their mid 60s, even patients as young as their late-20s and as old as their 90s have been diagnosed with the disease. Dr. Holstein explains, “Much of my practice, in fact, involves patients who are below the age of 50.”

Multiple myeloma is a rare form of cancer — True.

Compared to other cancers, multiple myeloma is actually quite rare. To give you a sense, there were 12 times fewer cases than lung cancer in 2018. “Approximately 30,000 patients will be predicted to be diagnosed in the coming year,” says Dr. Holstein.

Multiple myeloma may cause no symptoms in the early stages — True.

Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that can be symptomless in its earliest stages. For this reason, it can be a particularly difficult cancer to diagnose. Typically, the disease is diagnosed after routine lab tests, such as blood draws, that your primary care physician may give you. “It’s only subtle abnormalities in those labs which lead to the diagnosis of multiple myeloma long before [patients] develop any symptoms,” explains Holstein. Even when initial symptoms do arise, they may resemble other more common ailments, and so multiple myeloma may not be the first disease your physician thinks to check for.

Clinical trials are more risky than FDA-approved treatments  — It’s complicated.

According to Holstein, “This is a complicated answer and I’m not certain whether I can say true or false.” It’s important to realize that all FDA-approved treatments at one point or another were involved in a clinical trial prior to approval. Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials are riskier than approved treatments because they test the safety of new treatments in humans, so you may be the ‘guinea pig’ if you’re enrolled in an early phase trial. In contrast the safety of the therapy has been properly assessed and confirmed in later phase trials. “By the time a treatment gets into a Phase 3 study where your comparing the new treatment to a standard of care, at that point the safety profile is very well known. In that case, it’s unlikely that any new safety risks will be seen,” says Dr. Holstein. Bottom line is that Phase 3 clinical trials and on are no less risky than FDA-approved treatments, while any clinical trials in an earlier phase may pose unknown risks.

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