Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have reported that steroid pill treatment has the unique ability to improve the overall survival rate of patients with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow.

Multiple myeloma, a dreadful type of cancer, is considered to take lives of at least 14,000 people in the United States alone each year.

From News.Bio-Medicine.Org:

Multiple myeloma occurs when the body makes an abnormally high number of cancerous plasma cells. When healthy, plasma cells help to protect the body from infection and disease by forming antibodies that attack foreign substances. But when the body makes too many plasma cells that all make the same type of antibody, this leads to multiple myeloma, causing damage to bones, severe bone pain, an overabundance of calcium in the blood, anemia, and a weakening of the immune system. Today, most patients with multiple myeloma receive initial treatment with chemotherapy or with high-dose chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant and many respond to treatment and achieve remission. However, all patients ultimately relapse with incurable disease, leading physicians to search for ways to prolong remission for as long as possible by using some type of maintenance therapy.

James Berenson, M.D., lead author of the Southwest Oncology Group sponsored study and Director of the Multiple Myeloma and Bone Metastasis Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said that the usage of prednisone in response to an upfront chemotherapy is believed to be a safe, effective way to prolong the lives of patients suffering from Multiple Myeloma.

The researchers concluded that it was discovered that patients who have been receiving oral prednisone over a long and continuing term following chemotherapy treatment maintained their remission and lived longer.

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Tags: chemotherapy, multiple myeloma, oral prednisone, Prednisone, steroid, steroid pill treatment, steroid pills

Posted in Steroids and Anabolic Steroids