Digital Guide: Diagnosing Multiple Myeloma and Developing a Treatment Plan - Phoenix

Dr. Matthew Ulrickson of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston sat down with SurvivorNet to help us understand the purpose and process behind bone marrow biopsies. He called the bone marrow biopsy “a vital part of diagnosing and staging multiple myeloma.”

A patient is only diagnosed with multiple myeloma when certain symptoms start to appear. There are two precancerous conditions that mat develop into multiple myeloma: MGUS, and smoldering myeloma.

Dr. Ulrickson explains how the DNA of a patient’s multiple myeloma cells can influence their doctors’ approach to treatment. Hyperdiploid means that the multiple myeloma cells have too many chromosomes, and hypodiploid means that the cells have too few.

Some cases of MGUS and smoldering multiple myeloma may not develop fully into multiple myeloma, but both are precancerous conditions that require a degree of surveillance.

The first line of treatment for people who have been diagnosed with multiple myeloma is called induction therapy. This treatment uses chemotherapy drugs to kill off multiple myeloma cells.