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IMS 2026 | Concept of cure in multiple myeloma: a patients perspective
Jenny Ahlstrom, HealthTree Foundation, South Jordan, UT, discusses the concept of a cure in multiple myeloma from a patient’s perspective, noting that while patients are excited about the possibility of a cure, they are also cautious because of the risk of relapse. She notes that patients generally consider being off treatment as a key aspect of a cure, but emphasizes the need for ongoing monitoring and careful communication from the medical community to avoid misconceptions. This interview took place at the 23rd International Myeloma Society (IMS) Annual Meeting in Glasgow, UK.
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Transcript
So as a patient myself, I am excited to start hearing the word cure. When I was first diagnosed, that was not a word that people used ever. And it is very exciting to see the path that we have taken over the last 16 years since my diagnosis. Patients are excited for the word, but they’re also cautious. What does cure mean for a patient? They don’t want to be told they’re cured and then have a relapse in the future...
So as a patient myself, I am excited to start hearing the word cure. When I was first diagnosed, that was not a word that people used ever. And it is very exciting to see the path that we have taken over the last 16 years since my diagnosis. Patients are excited for the word, but they’re also cautious. What does cure mean for a patient? They don’t want to be told they’re cured and then have a relapse in the future. So there needs to be some careful thinking about how we talk about that as a community. I think for the investigators, the term functional cure is a very common term, but patients, we know, don’t really understand that term, so they need to be, we need to, you know, figure that out before we start talking about functional cure as a whole. Generally, patients are excited for it. They believe that a cure, we’ve done a survey on this before the HealthTree Foundation back in 2022 and we’re doing another cure survey currently that we’ve just launched, and they really think it’s being off treatment. That’s what a cure means for a patient: being off treatment. Now patients need to still go to the clinic and still get checked and all of those really good things. So you don’t want to tell a patient they’re cured and then they never come back to the clinic. But there are a lot of things that are involved in cure for patients. So we just have to approach this cautiously as a community when we talk about cure. But it’s very exciting for patients.
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