Follow-up after treatment for multiple myeloma
Follow-up care lets your healthcare team keep track of your health for a period of time after treatment ends or while you are on maintenance therapy. This important part of cancer care is often shared among the cancer specialists and your family doctor. They will help you recover from treatment side effects and monitor you for any signs that the cancer has come back (relapsed).
Follow-up care may not seem that important to you, especially if your treatment was long or very hard. You may find the idea of follow-up care stressful because it reminds you of your cancer experience or because you are worried about what a test might reveal. Talk to your healthcare team about how you feel and about why follow-up matters. Your healthcare team is there to help.
Schedule for follow-up visits@(headingTag)>
Don't wait until your next scheduled appointment to report any new symptoms and symptoms that don't go away. Tell your healthcare team if you have:
- bone pain
- signs of an infection, such as redness
- bleeding
- dizziness
- leg swelling
- numbness, tingling or weakness in the feet or legs
Multiple myeloma often relapses, so you may have treatment again after treatment has stopped for a while. Follow-up visits for multiple myeloma are usually scheduled every 1 to 4 months.
During follow-up visits@(headingTag)>
Follow-up visits may be different if you were able to have a stem cell transplant (called transplant eligible multiple myeloma) or if you were unable to have a stem cell transplant (called transplant ineligible multiple myeloma).
If multiple myeloma relapses, your healthcare team will assess you to determine the best treatment options.
Transplant eliglible multiple myeloma@(headingTag)>
Your healthcare team will usually ask questions about the side effects of treatment and how you're coping during a follow-up visit.
Your doctor may do a physical exam to check for lumps or tenderness of the bones.
Tests are often part of follow-up care. They help your doctor to find out how well your treatment is working or if the cancer looks like it may be coming back. Not all follow-up tests will be done each time you have a follow-up visit. You may have:
- blood tests to check blood cell counts, M-protein levels (the abnormal type of immunoglobulin) , free light chains and other chemicals in the blood
- urine tests to check M-protein levels in the urine
- a bone marrow biopsy to check the number of myeloma cells in the bone marrow
- CT scans, PET-CT scans, MRIs or x-rays to check the bones for breaks, areas of weakness or signs of a tumour
Transplant ineligible multiple myeloma@(headingTag)>
During your follow-up visit, your healthcare team will ask questions to assess your quality of life, including how you are managing the side effects of treatment and how you are coping. This will determine if the goals of treatment that you and your doctor set are being met or if adjustments need to be made to the maintenance therapy.
Maintenance therapy may need to be adjusted if:
- you are experiencing many side effects
- you have low white blood cell counts (called neutropenia)
- you have a fever or infection
- you are unable to manage or cope with side effects
-
your
performance status has lowered - your kidneys and liver are not working well
You may also have these tests as part of your follow-up:
- blood tests to check blood cell counts, M-protein levels (the abnormal type of immunoglobulin) , free light chains and other chemicals in the blood
- urine tests to check M-protein levels in the urine
- a bone marrow biopsy to check the number of myeloma cells in the bone marrow
- CT scans, PET-CT scans, MRIs or x-rays to check the bones for breaks, areas of weakness or signs of a tumour
Find out more about follow-up@(headingTag)>
The following are questions that you can ask the healthcare team about follow-up after treatment for cancer. Choose the questions that fit your situation and add questions of your own. You may find it helpful to take the list to the next appointment and to write down the answers.
- What is the schedule for follow-up visits?
- How often is follow-up scheduled with the cancer specialist?
- Who is responsible for follow-up visits?
- What will happen at a follow-up visit?
- What tests are done on a regular basis? How often are they done?
- Are there any symptoms that should be reported right away? Who do I call?
- Who can help me cope with long-term side effects of treatment?
Your trusted source for accurate cancer information
With just $5 from readers like you, we can continue to provide the highest quality cancer information for over 100 types of cancer.
We’re here to ensure easy access to accurate cancer information for you and the millions of people who visit this website every year. But we can’t do it alone.
If everyone reading this gave just $5, we could achieve our goal this month to fund reliable cancer information, compassionate support services and the most promising research. Please give today because every contribution counts. Thank you.