Should you have a cardiologist on your team? This is a great question. I think one of the reasons why it's important to have a cardiac specialist on your team is this because a lot of times our patients are older when they get diagnosed with myeloma. And so one of the things that we realize is that even patients before they get diagnosed, they might not necessarily have a cardiac diagnosis, but once you start therapy, oftentimes these types of diagnoses can emerge, either because of the treatments, the side effects of the treatments, or for instance, it was masked before and then it kind of came out. So it's important to have a cardiac specialist. Also, in some of our patients, they can have something called AL amyloidosis that occurs. So it's important in those specific cases to have a cardiologist who's able to really manage them. So one of the things that we also know is that patients can have long-term emerging side effects. So if, for instance, a patient has had radiation to the chest, to the rib area, it's important to also monitor the heart specifically for long-term side effects. And those can emerge much later on, years later. So again, it's really important to have a cardiologist in your care team. Another important person that you should have on your treatment team is a cardiologist. Especially that's important if you've had a stem cell transplant or if you've had certain treatments. Kyprolis or carfilzomib, for instance, can have a significant effect on heart problems. And there's others. So a cardiologist should be part of your team as well.
HealthTree • February 14, 2023
