As The Promise study is poised to begin enrolling participants who may be able to help find new treatments and an eventual cure for the blood cancer called Multiple Myeloma, Boston news outlets start letting the public know.
Read the full story here on Boston's WCVB channel 5 website, originally reported by Emily Riemer.
Excerpt:
A new national initiative focused on screening for blood cancers is now underway. That specialized screening is something that's never been done before and is being led by a Boston-based researcher.
"We do a lot of screening for breast cancer when you do mammograms or colon cancer when you do a colonoscopy, yet we've never done any blood cancer screening," said Dr. Irene Ghobrial, an associate professor of medicine at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
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She is leading a team of scientists from across the United States, funded by Stand Up To Cancer. The organization awarded the team $10 million to find new ways of detecting and treating multiple myeloma.
It's a blood cancer of plasma cells found in the bone marrow. Those cells change, growing out of control and crowding out healthy cells. The disease affects one group of people more than any other.
"African-Americans are much more common to have multiple myeloma, three times more common to have myeloma, and this is very important for us to understand. Why is this happening and can we help prevent this from happening," Ghobrial said.
The team hopes to enroll 50,000 people over the next two years. The criteria: African-Americans over age 45 or a first-degree relative of someone diagnosed with myeloma and also over age 45.
Read more and watch the full video at the link above.
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