Is MM Common?

 MM is not all that common but I would not quite call it rare. Nonetheless, it is uncommon enough that many oncologists may have only seen a very few cases. MM also is a HIGHLY variable disease. Some have very indolent cases that give little problem for years, some have extraordinarily aggressive cases that can prove lethal within weeks to a few months. Most are diagnosed when fairly ill but may then achieve a return to a nearly normal life by the use of one treatment or another. Unfortunately, finding the best treatment for any given case is a process of trial and error. Doctors will start with the mildest treatments and then escalate to more aggressive or specialized treatments as the nature of the MM becomes more evident.

To complicate matters further, MM will likely evolve to more aggressive forms over time but there is no predictable schedule nor is there any certainty about what the nature of the next evolution will be in terms of which treatments will be effective and which will not. Sometimes treatment effectiveness also is influenced by MM cell load. A patient who can get their MM cell counts down low enough may be able to downgrade their treatment to something much milder and still be able to hold back the disease when that same mild treatment was badly losing ground against the MM when the cell counts were higher.

This is a long-winded explanation of why I am very reluctant to try to list MM treatments in some sort of order of efficacy. It basically is just not that simple.

From what I have just said, you can see that it is very important to at least be seen by a doctor who either has experience treating many MM patients (rather than just a handful) or who has direct consulting access to such a doctor (and makes use of that access on a regular basis). Otherwise, there is a danger that the MM can do some quirky thing that will mislead, confuse, or badly demoralize a less experienced doctor. This will end up with the patient either getting suboptimal treatment or getting treatment only after too much time has elapsed - as the doctor tries to figure out what the right thing to do might be. Being seen by an MM expert is a very good thing and can make a big difference in the patient's chances in many cases.

Bob M.