A new way of diagnosing and monitoring myeloma

Myeloma is type of blood cancer that affects plasma cells. Plasma cells are made inside the bone marrow, the spongy material inside our bones. A small percentage of people with myeloma do not produce a specific protein so it can be hard to detect the disease via a blood test. Doctors refer to this as non-measurable myeloma (NMM). This means people with NMM regularly undergo more invasive procedures such as bone marrow biopsies and whole-body scans to diagnose and monitor the disease. These types of procedures are much more time consuming and can cause a lot of stress and discomfort.

Dr Chan and her team have developed a new technique to monitor people with NMM. This technique involves applying stains to the blood samples taken from someone with myeloma to detect specific proteins that would not be visible with standard blood tests. This means her team can diagnose and monitor people with this hard to detect myeloma in a less invasive way. They plan to test their new technique on a large group of people with the disease. They will also conduct group conversations with people with NMM to understand their opinions of using this type of test as an alternative to bone marrow biopsies and whole-body scans to monitor the disease.

If successful, Dr Chan hopes this will be an effective way to diagnose and monitor NMM. In the future this could mean people with the disease won’t have to undergo unpleasant and invasive bone marrow biopsies and whole-body scans at diagnosis and can be monitored more easily whilst undergoing treatment. These blood tests may also be done at a patient's local GP surgery which is usually closer to home, so when undergoing treatment people with NMM won’t have to regularly make the journey to hospital for checkups and monitoring.