In this week’s #AskDrDurie, myeloma expert Dr. Brian G.M. Durie discusses what tests are used when monitoring patients who are doing well on maintenance therapy and the importance of close monitoring.
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This week's "Ask Dr. Durie" comes from a patient
who wants to know what is the best testing and monitoring required when you are doing
well on maintenance therapy or have come off therapy and are even being followed off therapy? This is a very important question because
in addition to the standard testing required to monitor the status of myeloma, it is important
these days to be aware of certain things that might occur. So, the standard testing includes testing
for the monoclonal protein in the
serum and/or in the urine using SPEP or UPEP. Also, you obviously need to have the regular
blood counts performed on the chemistry panel to make sure that the general conditions are
good. However, what we are more alert to with patients
going through many different protocols of treatment over the years is that in that response
and maintenance period, there can be a relapse of the myeloma, which occurs with very little
change in the SPEP or UPEP and maybe only minimal changes in the blood counts
or the
chemistry panel. And so, in this situation, we now recommend
that there needs to be a closer follow-up of the free light test to make sure that there
is not an escape where there is something called a light chain escape, where the light
chains start going up instead of just the serum myeloma protein or the urine protein. In addition, we need to be alert to any changes
that the patient notices, if there is some new pain or swelling. It's important to be alert and get some extra
imaging or
scans using PET/CT or MRI, or a whole-body CT scan, to see if any new lesions
are popping up, even without minimal changes in the regular blood testing. The BOTTOM LINE these days is that we need
to have a broader perspective on how we're viewing the patient to make sure that there
are not subtle changes and that there is not the emergence of what is called either Bence-Jones
light chain escape or even non-secretory escape where there is myeloma developing without
the production of much protein
at all. And so, we are more alert than we have been
in the past looking for perhaps soft tissue plasma chromas tumors or even changes in the
blood with something like plasma cell leukemia. So, it is important to be particularly alert
in the maintenance monitoring.
Comments
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Useful information. Thank you.
How about this new Heavylite test?
Lambda is around 40 and Kappa is around 66 and has remained steady for over a year. It's acase of Ig Lamda MM now under remission