Mindy Kupchin, RN

Panelists discuss how patients educate themselves about multiple myeloma through hospital pamphlets and magazines, online research, and positive attitude books about cancer while emphasizing the critical importance of peer support and mentorship programs where patients can meet with others who have successfully undergone treatments like stem cell transplants, creating comforting group meetings that help alleviate fear and provide hope by seeing healthy survivors share their stories and demonstrate that recovery is possible.

Panelists discuss how multidisciplinary care coordination for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy involves registered nurses serving as support persons and liaisons between academic centers and community oncologists, with streamlined communication through direct cell phone access, telehealth consultations to assess candidacy, and coordinated logistics for pretreatment testing, including PET scans, bone marrow biopsies, brain MRIs, and lumbar punctures, while emphasizing that CAR T approval has expanded from fourth-line treatment in 2022 to second-line therapy in 2024, allowing for faster patient access through insurance approval and outpatient T-cell collection processes.

Panelists discuss how a patient with multiple myeloma initially experienced severe fatigue, hair loss, swelling from kidney dysfunction, and overwhelming pain before being misdiagnosed with lupus, ultimately requiring emergency care where blood work and bone marrow biopsy confirmed both multiple myeloma and amyloidosis, leading to successful treatment with chemotherapy followed by stem cell transplant that achieved 5.5 years of remission monitored through regular blood draws tracking  light chain levels.

Panelists discuss how multiple myeloma is a rare blood cancer affecting plasma cells that have gone rogue, causing symptoms like fatigue, kidney dysfunction, and bone pain, with approximately 36,000 new cases diagnosed annually in the US, primarily affecting older patients around 60 to 65 years of age. Although multiple myeloma is highly treatable with great therapy options available, the disease often relapses and requires aggressive early treatment approaches, including emerging immunotherapies that may help cure a larger fraction of patients in the future.