Lauren Laverne Encourages Others to Advocate for Their Health
- Radio and TV presenter Lauren Laverne has revealed she was diagnosed with low-risk smoldering multiple myeloma, a precancerous blood disorder that is currently being monitored without treatment.
- The 48-year-old cancer survivor shared that the condition was caught early after her doctor investigated persistent low iron levels, urging others to speak up about their health and seek answers.
- She said she is feeling well and will continue regular monitoring with blood tests, MRIs, and bone marrow biopsies while taking time to focus on her health.
- Smoldering multiple myeloma is a disease that is very close to becoming active myeloma, but does not have any symptoms. “Just by its name, it’s smoldering, it’s almost there to light up the fire, to become active disease,” says Dr. Irene Ghobrial, myeloma specialist from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
- Almost all patients diagnosed with active multiple myeloma had smoldering myeloma previously, but most don’t know it. Smoldering myeloma is symptomless, but is characterized by higher levels of abnormal proteins in the blood and plasma cells that make up greater than 10% of the bone marrow.
- SurvivorNet’s “My Health Questions” AI tool helps patients and caregivers better understand breast cancer screening and treatment options by providing clinically grounded answers and personalized questions for upcoming doctor visits.
The 48-year-old U.K. based celeb, who rose to fame while in the 1990s indie-rock band Kenickie, wrote in an recent Instagram post, “Hey. So–personal news. I’m quite a private person by nature but am sharing this as one of the many things I’ve learned after going through health challenges in recent years is that talking about this stuff helps people.
Read MoreThe likelihood of progression depends on whether the disease is considered standard- or high-risk. For people with standard-risk smoldering myeloma, the chance of developing active multiple myeloma is about 10% per year during the first five years after diagnosis, then falls to about 3% annually over the next five years and approximately 1% per year after that. In contrast, people with high-risk smoldering myeloma face a much greater likelihood of progression, with some risk models estimating about a 50% chance of developing active multiple myeloma within two years of diagnosis.
Laverne continued, “Thankfully for me the risk of this happening in my case is pretty low. At the moment I feel OK and don’t need treatment. Most people my age who have it have no idea–it tends to be cancer survivors like me who are diagnosed early as we’re so carefully monitored.
“It has nothing to do with my previous illness or my recent surgery, it’s just one of those things.”
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She also explained that smoldering myeloma is a chronic condition that has not yet become active disease, but it can affect the immune system and leave it compromised.
“I will need to take good care of myself and I will be carefully monitored with blood tests, MRIs and bone marrow biopsies (which I have recently discovered are even less fun then they sound),” Laverne added.
“It’s been a lot, especially coming less than two years after my last diagnosis, but I know that seeing others in the public eye cope with comparable situations has helped me, so I thought I’d be upfront about it.”
Understanding Smoldering Myeloma
Laverne continued, “This is the second Big Problem my GP [general practitioner] has caught early and it is frankly impossible to adequately express my gratitude.
“I was pretty blasé about my persistently low iron levels, but he insisted we get to the bottom of what was going on. My message to others would be: be like him, not me! Advocate for yourself if you need to and ask to see a hematologist if you are in the same situation.”
After sharing the news, Laverne noted that she’ll be taking several weeks off for vacation, before returning back to work.
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In a followup post, Laverne thanked her fans for “all the gorgeous messages.”
“I’m feeling good – getting my head around things (with the help of some brilliant people) but hearing lots of encouraging stories and getting good advice and guidance which I really appreciate,” she wrote.
Laverne also shared a glimpse into her recent days, expressing gratitude for thoughtful gifts from friends and brands, enjoying music in her backyard, and spending time with her beloved pets.
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What Is Smoldering Multiple Myeloma?
People who are diagnosed with smoldering multiple myeloma have more plasma cells in their bone marrow than people diagnosed with MGUS [the first phase of multiple myeloma], but they still have not experienced symptoms of myeloma.
Smoldering myeloma occurs when a patient has greater than or equal to 10% abnormal plasma cells via bone marrow biopsy.
RELATED: How are MGUS and Smoldering Multiple Myeloma Monitored?
There is a higher risk of patients with smoldering multiple myeloma developing multiple myeloma, so this condition requires close monitoring. For the first 5 years following a smoldering multiple myeloma diagnosis, patients have a 10% risk of the condition progressing. For the next five years the risk is 3%, and the risk is 1% a year from then on.
Smoldering Myeloma — Keeping it from Becoming Active
According to Dr. Matthew Ulrickson, of Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert, Arizona, who previously spoke with SurvivorNet, there is not one solid answer to the question of whether or not people with smoldering multiple myeloma should be treated.
“Some ongoing research is looking at whether or not patients with smoldering multiple myeloma need to be treated,” he explained. “That’s something you should talk about with your physician.”
The standard approach to smoldering multiple myeloma used to be to monitor the condition and wait until there were symptoms of multiple myeloma before treating it.
More recent research, however, suggests that there may be benefits to earlier treatment. This is particularly true for people with genetic traits that indicate a greater risk of development to full multiple myeloma.
On November 6, 2025, the FDA approved daratumumab (an immunotherapy drug, often called Dara, that takes advantage of your body’s immune response to bacteria and viruses) and a subcutaneous immunotherapy drug called hyaluronidase-fihj (Darzalex Faspro), for adults with high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma after the AQUILA trial showed it reduced the risk of progression to active multiple myeloma or death by 51% compared with active monitoring.
Research has shown that the drug daratumumab, which traditionally has been used in later stages of treatment for multiple myeloma, can also be effective as an upfront treatment. Also known by its brand name, Darzalex, daratumumab is a “monoclonal antibody,” which works by binding to a specific protein on the surface of multiple myeloma cells called CD38. In doing so, the drug essentially summons the body’s own immune system to attack the cancerous cells.
Adding Daratumumab to Front-line Therapy in Multiple Myeloma
“Upfront therapy for multiple myeloma has really been evolving very quickly,” explained Dr. Robert Orlowski, the director of myeloma at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, to SurvivorNet.
“And we now have actually three trials where daratumumab was incorporated as part of front-line therapy and found to show increased activity compared with regimens without daratumumab.”
Overall, though, the growing body of research seems to indicate that adding daratumumab to other drug regimens for multiple myeloma has a lot of potential.
“Everything is better with bacon,” Dr. Orlowski says, comparing the promising drug to the popular breakfast side dish. “It seems the same is true for daratumumab. Whatever combination you add it to makes it work better.”
One of the reasons, says Dr. Orlowski, is that daratumumab can be added to existing drug combinations without increasing what’s called the “toxicity” of the treatment regimen — that is, its side effects.
“It’s an antibody, so it has a relatively low toxicity profile,” Dr. Orlowski explains. “Dara doesn’t usually add too many side effects, and that makes it easier for patients to tolerate 3- and 4-drug combinations … so that that’s why you’re seeing so many daratumumab-based combinations.”
Approaching a Smoldering Myeloma Diagnosis
The current approach to treating smoldering myeloma, which Laverne is taking, is to “watch and wait.”
Dr. Irene Ghobria, a medical oncologist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, previously told SurvivorNet that waiting too long can produce active myeloma and serious symptoms. The changes in the blood and bone can eventually become worse, and end up affecting different parts of the body, producing symptoms like bone fractures and organ damage. Once these injuries occur, patients are started on a three-phase myeloma treatment, which includes steroids, immune system-activating drugs, chemotherapy, and stem-cell transplantation.
Dr. Ghobrial believes this approach doesn’t really make sense. “You can think of it in…breast cancer for example. A woman would have early breast lesions–we would never tell her, ‘wait until you have metastatic lesions everywhere. Wait until you’re fracturing your bones and then I’ll treat you.’ We do that in myeloma every day. We tell them, ‘wait, you have smoldering myeloma. You don’t have symptoms. So, wait until you have lesions and fractures and then I’ll treat you.'”
Researchers like Dr. Ghobrial, however, are working to develop treatments for smoldering myeloma keeping it from becoming active disease. She wants to cure patients of the disease before they develop serious symptoms or active myeloma.
“We want to change [the current approach].” That’s why Dr. Ghobrial uses treatments typically reserved for the first phase of active myeloma in patients with smoldering. “You can have a better survival with lenalidomide and [dexamethasone].” Those two drugs are part of first-line therapy for active multiple myeloma now being used against smoldering. Lenalidomide is a drug that prevents myeloma cells from processing proteins key to survival, while also activating the immune system. Dexamethasone is a steroid drug that can help reduce inflammation and pain while also killing myeloma cells when given in high doses.
Ghobrial says there is evidence that another drug may be very effective against smoldering myeloma, “We added an antibody that activates the immune system, something called elotuzumab.” Elotuzumab is an antibody, a protein, that binds to a receptor expressed on myeloma cells. By “tagging” myeloma cells with this protein, the drug makes the cells easily visible to immune cells that can target and kill them. Ghobrial says the results have been dramatic.
“After three years of follow-up, we have not seen anyone develop active myeloma when they were on (Elotuzumab). So, it’s an exciting time for us. We think that by doing that, as well as other combinations of therapy that we have, we could potentially prevent progression in our patients with myeloma.”
Dr. Ulrickson Explains How Multiple Myeloma Changes Over Time
Multiple myeloma can be detected in multiple phases of the disease:
- Monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance (MGUS)
- Smoldering (or asymptomatic) multiple myeloma
- Multiple myeloma
Multiple myeloma starts with a single plasma cell making more copies of itself than it should. This abnormal reproduction can be detected in the bloodstream because of proteins that are secreted through the process.
“If it is simply making this protein, but no other symptoms are present, it’s referred to as an MGUS [monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance],” Dr. Ulrickson said. This acronym stands for monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance.
In this phase of the disease, patients do not need treatment, but Dr. Ulrickson recommends connecting with a hematologist who can monitor the disease and adjust treatment if it progresses. A bone marrow biopsy may be warranted to look inside the bone marrow to see the level of abnormal plasma cells. If you have less than 10% of abnormal plasma cells detected you fall into the MGUS category.
Most people with this condition do not develop multiple myeloma–the risk is about 1% per year. For most people living with MGUS, the condition requires regular check ups to make sure that it does not advance.
Understanding Multiple Myeloma
When the cancer begins to damage the body, a patient will be diagnosed with multiple myeloma. People with multiple myeloma have more cancerous cells than people with MGUS and smoldering myeloma. “We usually refer to the CRAB criteria when diagnosing multiple myeloma,” Dr. Ulrickson said.
- C for high calcium
- R for renal failure (kidney failure)
- A for anemia (a low red blood cell count)
- B for bone lesions, which can cause pain and lead to fractures
Any of these symptoms can lead to a multiple myeloma diagnosis. A person’s health and the classification of their multiple myeloma will inform the treatment path that doctors recommend.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
When faced with a cancer diagnosis, it’s crucial to ask your doctor informed questions to understand your condition, treatment options, and coping strategies. These questions can serve as a starting point for your discussion with your doctor so you can feel empowered and informed as you navigate your cancer journey.
- What type and stage of cancer do I have, and what does this mean for my prognosis?
- What treatment options are available, and what are the potential benefits and risks?
- How will the proposed treatment plan impact my daily life, including work, family, and social activities?
- Are there any clinical trials or experimental treatments I may be eligible for?
- How can I manage treatment side effects and maintain my overall well-being during treatment?
- How will my cancer diagnosis and treatment affect my emotional health, and what support resources are available to help me cope?
SurvivorNet’s “My Health Questions” AI tool helps patients and caregivers better understand breast cancer screening and treatment options by providing clinically grounded answers and personalized questions for upcoming doctor visits.
WATCH: How One Cancer Survivor and Her Sister Used “My Health Questions” to Navigate Care
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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