Each year the National Cancer institute has put out a report and statistics on many different cancers. It usually comes out in April, but has just gone through a massive change in the format. Just when I got familiar with the old system a new one comes and for me it took a lot of time to get even a little familiar with the new system. However, with the 2022 edition I found one graph which caught my eye. It was a graph of survival by year of diagnosis. It was done for 1 year, 3year, 5 year and 10 year survival. A few of my early observations were:
1) Every year for the last 10 years the graph has shown improvement in survival since 2000
2) The improvement is incremental and gradual, and not in a step fashion one might expect as new classes of drugs are introduced like Revlimid, Vecade, Daratumumab, bispecifics, and CAR T.
3) If we look at the year 2009 there is data for all of the survival years of 1,3,5, and 10. The first year survival has an improvement from 2001 to 2009 of 71.4% to 79.7% or 8.3%, 3 year improvement from 49.6% to 62.8% or 13.2%, 5 year improvement from 36.6% to 51.0% or 14.4%, and the 10 year survival from 21.2% to 33.4% or 12.2% improvement.
4) Could this imply that early treatment could account for a minimum of 8.3/14.4 or 58% of the overall survival improvement? Dr. Irene Ghobial's and Dr. Sigurdur Kristinsson work is ground breaking in this initiative.
5) In the 10 year survival you can notice that survival has improved from 2001 at 21.2% to 33.4% in 2009, and this 58% improvement in survival seems outstanding, however myeloma specialists have been quoting this figure of 10 year survival as the standard for there institution for years. Does this imply the 85% of patients who are not treated by a specialist must wait until the newest treatments reach the treating community through osmosis? This would also explain the lack of step improvements as new drugs are developed.
6) To aid in getting this to the patients and care givers, Myeloma Healthtree, IMF, LLS, and MMRF do there best to spread the word, but even Heathtree who has 9000 people signed up on their platform and this represents just a small fraction of the more than 150,000 people in the US who are living with myeloma. For all those who are not being treated by a myeloma specialist your best bet is to join the Heathtree community. If there was only a way to get past the fear of HPAA restrictions, and each myeloma patient could be informed at diagnosis of the value of early treatment and the best treatments as per Healthtree we could double the patients still living with myeloma to 300,000, or already have found the cure.
Good luck and may God Bless your myeloma journey.
1) Every year for the last 10 years the graph has shown improvement in survival since 2000
2) The improvement is incremental and gradual, and not in a step fashion one might expect as new classes of drugs are introduced like Revlimid, Vecade, Daratumumab, bispecifics, and CAR T.
3) If we look at the year 2009 there is data for all of the survival years of 1,3,5, and 10. The first year survival has an improvement from 2001 to 2009 of 71.4% to 79.7% or 8.3%, 3 year improvement from 49.6% to 62.8% or 13.2%, 5 year improvement from 36.6% to 51.0% or 14.4%, and the 10 year survival from 21.2% to 33.4% or 12.2% improvement.
4) Could this imply that early treatment could account for a minimum of 8.3/14.4 or 58% of the overall survival improvement? Dr. Irene Ghobial's and Dr. Sigurdur Kristinsson work is ground breaking in this initiative.
5) In the 10 year survival you can notice that survival has improved from 2001 at 21.2% to 33.4% in 2009, and this 58% improvement in survival seems outstanding, however myeloma specialists have been quoting this figure of 10 year survival as the standard for there institution for years. Does this imply the 85% of patients who are not treated by a specialist must wait until the newest treatments reach the treating community through osmosis? This would also explain the lack of step improvements as new drugs are developed.
6) To aid in getting this to the patients and care givers, Myeloma Healthtree, IMF, LLS, and MMRF do there best to spread the word, but even Heathtree who has 9000 people signed up on their platform and this represents just a small fraction of the more than 150,000 people in the US who are living with myeloma. For all those who are not being treated by a myeloma specialist your best bet is to join the Heathtree community. If there was only a way to get past the fear of HPAA restrictions, and each myeloma patient could be informed at diagnosis of the value of early treatment and the best treatments as per Healthtree we could double the patients still living with myeloma to 300,000, or already have found the cure.
Good luck and may God Bless your myeloma journey.
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