Overview
The investigators are researching patients with diseases of their plasma cells in order to improve their quality and length of life. The investigators have created a database of patient information, blood samples, and bone marrow tissue in order to achieve the following three goals:
- Surveillance: The investigators want to track what treatments patients get or don't get, how effective they are, how they feel, what complications they suffer, how long they stay in remission, and how long they live.
- Contact: Because myeloma and amyloidosis are rare, less than 700 patients are diagnosed in the state of Ohio each year, patients often feel they don't have accurate information. The investigators want to provide them access to our clinical team (both phone and email consultations, even office visits for patients that can come to Columbus) as well as information regarding informational events pertaining to your disease and local support groups.
- Research: Because nearly all myeloma and amyloid patients relapse and treatment is eventually unsuccessful, our focus is to develop more effective treatments that not only prolong life, but cure the disease. Periodically the investigators will inform them about clinical trials studying new drugs or treatment paradigms.
Description
The investigators propose to contact and interact with all patients with plasma cell dyscrasias in the State of Ohio (and all patients diagnosed or treated at Ohio State Medical Center) for both surveillance and research purposes in order to develop interventions targeted to decrease their morbidity and mortality.
Eligibility
- Inclusion
Diagnosis of a plasma cell dyscrasia
- Exclusion
Prisoners are excluded from participation as they have no standard access to the Ohio State
myeloma clinic and would impede the research objective of this protocol.