Understanding Multiple Myeloma
- Bruce Springsteen has reassured fans that his wife Patti Scialfa is “doing well” while managing life with multiple myeloma, honoring her impact on his life and music at the 2026 American Music Honors.
- Multiple myeloma is a rare type of blood cancer that hinders the body’s ability to fight infections. It can cause weakness, dizziness, bone pain, and confusion, among other symptoms. Advancements in multiple myeloma treatments have improved the lives of patients battling the disease.
- It’s important to note that although this type of disease is manageable thanks to treatment advances, multiple myeloma patients face a higher chance of relapse (the cancer coming back), and maintenance treatment is often an important part of one’s cancer journey because it can extend periods of remission.
- There are a significant number of clinical trials being conducted for multiple myeloma and SurvivorNet has resources about how to access these options.
Speaking at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music in West Long Branch, New Jersey, on April 18, the “Thunder Road” singer delivered the sweetest speech about his wife at the fourth annual sold-out event.
Read MoreHe then praised her for having ” a nuance” which made their music “fuller, richer, and more human.”
View this post on Instagram
Springsteen then addressed Scialfa’s courageous songwriting skills, which “reveal an artist who’’s been unafraid to explore the intimate corners of life …love and longing, family and identity.
“The truth in her writing whispers instead of shouts,” he added.
According to NJ Monthly, which recapped the event, Springsteen also described his loving wife as a “kindred spirit,” further explaining, “As a band we’ve been lucky to have her musicianship.
“I’ve been lucky to have her companionship. So no one’s been luckier than me.”
Fans praised Springsteen’s tribute on social media as “really beautiful” and “true,” further offering a “big congrats” to Scialfa.
RELATED: Do Bruce Springsteen’s Stomach Ulcers Increase the Risk of Cancer?
Another fan commented, “Wishing Patti all the best – we miss having her on stage,” while another wrote, “Love the way he speaks about his wife. Amazing blessing to have married his best friend and brought her into the band.”
“We love our heroic Patti,” wrote another.
For a full guide of resources, please check out SurvivorNet’s multiple myeloma guide HERE.
View this post on Instagram
The memorable event was held at Monmouth University. Others honored during the event were singer Dionne Warwick, iconic rapper and producer Dr. Dre, and rock band The Doors.
At the start of the event, as per NJ Monthly, Springsteen said, “The whole thing really got much more out of hand than I ever imagined.
“t started with my stuff in a little shack over in the corner of the university. Now it’s in this [nearby] building, and the building is nicer than my house. And I have a really nice house!”
View this post on Instagram
Springsteen was referring to The Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, which “preserves the legacy of Bruce Springsteen and celebrates the history of American music and its diversity of artists and genres,” Monmouth University explains on their website.
The university continues, “As the home of the Bruce Springsteen Archives, the Center serves as the official repository for materials related to Springsteen and the E Street Band, including photographs, historic memorabilia, oral histories, and more.
“The Center also explores American music more broadly by producing exhibitions, concerts, and educational programming that interprets and honors the cultural impact of American music past, present, and future.”
Understanding Patti Scialfa’s Cancer Journey
Patti Scialfa first spoke of her multiple myeloma diagnosis in the Springsteen documentary titled “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band,” which was released in October 2024.
It was then fans learned of her health battle, where she’s seen addressing her health struggle, and according to People, she said in the documentary, “I’ve been performing with this band for 40 years. With those first performances, it felt so good to be back onstage.”
Expert Multiple Myeloma Resources
- A Great New Option For Multiple Myeloma Patients: Daratumumab Now Available As a Quick Shot, Replacing Long Infusions
- Adding Sarclisa to Treatment– A Promising New Option for Relapsed Multiple Myeloma
- Approach to Relapse in Multiple Myeloma
- Antibody as Part of Initial Treatment For Multiple Myeloma?
- Are the Treatments the Same for a Second or Third Relapse of Multiple Myeloma?
- Bone Marrow Biopsies: ‘A Vital Part of Diagnosing and Staging Multiple Myeloma’
- Can Multiple Myeloma Patients Achieve a Durable Remission After Induction Therapy & Skip or Delay a Stem Cell Transplant?
- Choosing the Best Treatment for Relapsed Multiple Myeloma
“Touring has become a challenge for me. In 2018, well, Bruce and I were doing a play on Broadway. I was diagnosed with early-stage multiple myeloma.”
She explained further, “This affects my immune system, so I have to be careful what I choose to do and where I choose to go. Every once in a while, I come to a show or two, and I can sing a few songs on stage, and that’s been a treat.
“That’s the new normal for me right now, and I’m OK with that.”
Explaining Maintenance Therapy
Understanding Multiple Myeloma
Multiple myeloma is a rare and incurable type of blood cancer. When you have this cancer, white blood cells called plasma cells (the cells that make antibodies to fight infections) in your bone marrow grow out of proportion to healthy cells. Those abnormal cells leave less room for the healthy blood cells your body needs to fight infections. They can also spread to other parts of your body and cause problems with organs like your kidneys.
Patient Education is Key — Head of Hematology at Johnson & Johnson On Getting Multiple Myeloma Patients Access to Good Information & Care
RELATED: When Multiple Myeloma Returns, SurvivorNet’s Resources
Sometimes, doctors find multiple myeloma while doing a blood test to look for another condition or when trying to find out what’s causing a patient’s unexplained symptoms.
Doctors use blood and urine tests and imaging tests, such as X-rays or MRIs, to help diagnose multiple myeloma and to guide treatment options. Ultimately, a bone marrow biopsy will confirm the diagnosis.
RELATED: Hematologist and SurvivorNet advisor, Dr. Nina Shah, helps you understand this rare cancer
Multiple myeloma symptoms can range from tiredness, nausea, and constipation. Other symptoms may include:
- Weakness, dizziness, and shortness of breath, which are signs of a low red blood cell count, are called anemia.
- Bone pain, which could be a sign of a fracture.
- Urinating too much or too little, muscle cramps, nausea, and vomiting are symptoms of kidney failure.
- Confusion is caused by too much calcium in the blood.
- Frequent infections because you have too few white blood cells to fight them.
It’s important to know that these symptoms could be attributed to other conditions. If you experience any of these symptoms or are concerned about any changes to your body, you should address them promptly with your doctor.
Hematologist-oncologist Dr. Adam Cohen lays out your options during the maintenance phase of treatment
Meanwhile, multiple myeloma does cause bone conditions. According to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, 85% of multiple myeloma patients have some kind of bone damage or loss.
“The most commonly affected areas are the spine, pelvis, and rib cage,” the Foundation explains.
The reason for this bone loss or damage is that multiple myeloma disrupts the bone remodeling process. The cancerous myeloma cells keep the cells in the bone responsible for removing old bone and rebuilding new bone from working properly.
The disease can also weaken the bone, resulting in fractures. And it can cause thinning of the bones, leading to osteoporosis [meaning the bones are more porous and more likely to fracture].
And “in advanced multiple myeloma, a patient may lose inches from his or her height due to compressed vertebrae over the course of their illness.”
So bone conditions can be a symptom of multiple myeloma.
RELATED: Why Do Some People With Cancer Experience Back or Bone Pain?
Getting a Diagnosis
Sometimes doctors find multiple myeloma while doing a blood test to look for another condition, or when trying to find out what’s causing a patient’s unexplained symptoms.
According to SurvivorNet’s experts, blood tests are also the way your doctor might learn that you have smoldering multiple myeloma or MGUS, because these conditions don’t usually cause symptoms. Smoldering multiple myeloma and MGUS aren’t cancer, but they can sometimes turn into cancer.
The odds that either condition will become cancer are very small, but to be safe, your doctor will probably check you more closely with blood and urine tests, and sometimes a bone marrow biopsy–removing and testing a small sample of the spongy material inside your bones. These tests can help monitor you for changes that signal you’ve switched over to multiple myeloma, and that you need to start treatment for this cancer. You may also need a bone marrow biopsy to help your doctor make the initial diagnosis.
Doctors use blood and urine tests and imaging tests, such as X-ray or MRI, to help diagnose multiple myeloma and to guide treatment options. Ultimately, a bone marrow biopsy will confirm the diagnosis.
Monitoring your bone strength and health over time will help your doctors understand how, or if, your disease is progressing.
Treatment Options For Multiple Myeloma
Not everyone with multiple myeloma needs treatment right away. If you have smoldering multiple myeloma, your doctor might simply monitor you regularly to see if your disease progresses.
If you develop symptoms or your doctor thinks you need treatment, there are many options. Which of these treatments you receive, and how they are sequenced, depend on several factors, and on whether your treatment team thinks you are a good candidate for a bone marrow transplant.
Bone Marrow (Stem Cell) Transplant
This is also known as a stem cell transplant. It is a procedure to replace diseased bone marrow with healthy bone marrow without myeloma cells. Based on multiple factors, your doctor may decide that a stem cell transplant is best for you. The transplant process can be involved and requires multiple steps. Be sure to discuss this with your treating team to understand what is involved and what options are available.
If you’re not a good candidate for chemotherapy, your treatment options include targeted therapies, biologics, and steroids.
Targeted Therapy
Targeted therapy is now available for patients with multiple myeloma, and targets abnormalities in myeloma cells that allow the cancer to survive. Examples of targeted agents your doctor may use include bortezomib (Velcade), carfilzomib (Kyprolis), and ixazomib (Sarclisa). These drugs are either given in a pill or through an IV and cause myeloma cells to die by preventing the breakdown of certain proteins in myeloma cells. Your doctor may also use other targeted agents in the class of medications known as monoclonal antibodies.
Biologic Therapy
Biologic therapy is another class of medication your treatment team may use to treat your myeloma. These medications use your body’s immune system to help fight and kill myeloma cells. This class of medication is most often given in pill form and includes medications such as thalidomide (Thalidomid), lenalidomide (Revlimid), and pomalidomide (Pomalyst).
Chemotherapy
Sometimes your treatment team may recommend chemotherapy to treat your myeloma. Chemotherapy uses strong medicine to target cancer cells throughout your body. If your doctor recommends a bone marrow transplant, high doses of chemotherapy are used for this purpose.
Steroids
Occasionally, doctors may use corticosteroids such as dexamethasone or prednisone as part of your treatment. Steroids are different from chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and biologic therapy. They work to reduce inflammation throughout your body. Steroids are given as a pill and are also active against myeloma cells.
Radiation
Radiation uses high-dose X-rays to stop cancer cells from dividing. It is sometimes used to target myeloma in specific areas that may be causing you issues or pain. It is also used if there are tumors or deposits of myeloma cells that need to be treated, such as a plasmacytoma — a tumor made of abnormal plasma cells — of the bone.
Sometimes the cancer can return, or relapse, after treatment. If this happens, your doctor can put you on one of the treatments you’ve already tried again, try a new treatment, or recommend that you enroll in a clinical trial.
Any of these treatments can cause side effects, which may include nerve pain and fatigue. Your doctor can adjust your medication if you do have side effects. In general, you should start to feel better once your treatment starts to work.
Extending Your Lifespan With Multiple Myeloma
Then you’ll ultimately reach the maintenance phase of treatment. Now that your doctor has gotten your cancer under control, from here the goal is to keep your disease stable and to maintain your quality of life. The type of maintenance therapy you get and what prognosis you can expect will depend on whether your doctor determines that your multiple myeloma is standard risk or high risk.
One of SurvivorNet’s experts describes the maintenance process for this disease as similar to lawn care. Once you care for your lawn and it’s no longer overgrown (that’s the initial treatment), it will need some tending, but with that attention (such as low doses of maintenance drugs), it can remain healthy.
Why the many phases of multiple myeloma are like caring for your lawn, says hematologic cancer specialist, Dr. Sid Ganguly
Sometimes this disease will return, even when you’re on maintenance therapies. You’ll still have treatments available if this happens.
Though it can be daunting to choose treatments for relapsed multiple myeloma, the medical experts at SurvivorNet are here to help you make sense of them.
Remember that you do have options, and that the goal, which becomes more achievable with each new treatment that’s introduced, is to preserve your quality of life and extend your lifespan.
The Revolution in Multiple Myeloma Treatment
We don’t use the word hope lightly at SurvivorNet, but with regards to multiple myeloma, patients should truly be hopeful. We can say that because the specialists who’ve been driving the field for the past 20 years all believe that the treatments they now give to patients are drastically better than when they first began their careers. Both medicine and research are extremely promising for people who are recently or newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma. We are indeed at something of an inflection point.
“In multiple myeloma we’ve been blessed in the last twenty years with an extraordinary change in the natural history of the disease, by virtue of the introduction of novel agents–which are biologically targeted, biologically rational approaches to treatment–that have really superseded the older approaches of chemotherapeutics,” says Dr. Paul Richardson, Director of Clinical Research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Newer drugs, including combination therapies, more-refined stem cell transplants, and the recent emergence of immunotherapies, have led to a kind of “paradigm change” in how we view and ultimately treat multiple myeloma, says Dr. Richardson. “We’ve seen dramatic changes continue and I think that’s what’s been so exciting and been such a privilege to be part of the field — because these changes have led to further advances.”
With current advancements, average length of life with multiple myeloma has become four times what it was just two decades ago. There has been so much innovation already that individuals who would only live for a few years after treatment are now living for a decade or more, and things will only get better from here.
When speaking about what he’s seen from his own patients, Dr. Richardson is optimistic and joyful. “It’s been such a wonderful thing to see them deal with their disease, go into remission, and enjoy survivorship of 10, 15, and even 20 years–something which, not so long ago, would have been unheard of.”
Questions for Your Doctor
If you are facing a multiple myeloma diagnosis, here are some questions to help you begin the conversation with your doctor:
- What stage is my multiple myeloma?
- What are my treatment options?
- What are the possible side effects of your recommended treatment?
- Who will be part of my healthcare team, and what does each member do?
- Can you refer me to a social worker or psychologist who can help me cope with my diagnosis?
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
