After 8 Years With Multiple Myeloma, Singer-Songwriter Patti Scialfa, 73, Is In Remission—Her Husband Bruce Springsteen Honors Her Doctors & Nurses: ‘Medical Research Is The Reason Families Find Hope’

The “Atlantic City” singer, appearing virtually at the event, said in a video clip, “As you know, Patti’s been living with her multiple myeloma for over eight years, but now, thankfully, she is in remission.

“However, like millions of families facing cancer, we’ve learned what every patient learns—Hope has a face. It’s our physician, who refuses to stop searching and caring. It’s our nurse, who sits beside us when we are scared and always makes our journey always just a little bit easier.”

 

For a full guide of resources, please check out SurvivorNet’s multiple myeloma guide HERE.

It’s important to understand that while multiple myeloma is an incurable cancer, remission is attainable. Once that happens, patients typically move to maintenance therapy—a drug regimen designed to make the remission last as long as possible. It’s unclear what type of maintenance therapy Scialfa is on.

Here is @springsteen beautiful speech about Patti’s cancer battle and an acoustic performance of “Born to Run” fundraising for last Saturday’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston’s Pan-Mass Challenge. Glad to know Patti is doing well and is in remission. 🙏🏼 #springsteen pic.twitter.com/kA6BOujpqQ

— Spring-Nuts (@SpringNuts_) August 3, 2026

Springsteen then shared his appreciation for Dr. Paul Richardson and the Dana-Farber team, saying he has been grateful to witness their dedication and the impact of their work on his wife’s health.

“Every single day, he [Dr. Richardson] and his incredible team provide hope and amazing care to all their patients and families, including Patty and I, as well as helping to provide cutting-edge research,” the New Jersey-born musician and dad of three, whose career has spanned six decades and includes 21 studio albums, continued.

RELATED: The Incredible Journey of Author Jonathan Gluck: Hip Pain Turned Out To Be Multiple Myeloma; His Remarkable Complete Remission’ With CAR T-Cell Therapy

“Now, Patty’s journey has taught us something I hope every one of us and every American can understand. Medical research isn’t an idea. It isn’t politics. It isn’t a line in a budget. It’s the reason families find hope when hope seems hardest to find. When we lose sight of that, we lose sight of one another. And that’s too high a price for anyone to pay.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bruce Springsteen Fan 🎸 (@fanof_theboss)

Springsteen further praised the cancer community, saying the people who continue fighting, supporting others, and refusing to leave anyone behind represent the best of humanity and America.

He concluded, before singing his song “Born To Run,” “Now, more than ever, the world needs more everyday heroes like the folks who make up the PMC.

“Patty and I are grateful for everything you continue to do.”

Founded by Billy Starr in 1980, the Pan-Mass Challenge has grown into one of the country’s leading cycling fundraisers and the largest athletic fundraising event of its kind.

The Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC), according to its official website, takes place each August and unites thousands of riders and volunteers from around the world in the fight against cancer, raising more than $1.125 billion for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute since the event began.

Patti Scialfa’s Journey Through Multiple Myeloma

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.”

“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.

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.

RELATED: ‘First Study of its Kind’ Shows Diet Can Delay Progression of Cancer — Understanding Multiple Myeloma & The Diseases That Precede It

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].

RELATED: When Myeloma Comes Back, a Newer Treatment Is Showing Remarkable Results

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 (Ninlaro). 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 Survival & Improving Quality of Life 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 Changing Landscape of Multiple Myeloma Care

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.

---