March is Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month

Join with the aacr to find better ways to prevent and treat multiple myeloma

Multiple myeloma is a type of cancer that begins in plasma cells. These are white blood cells that are important to a healthy immune system. In cases of multiple myeloma, abnormal plasma cells (which are called myeloma cells) can build up in the bone marrow and form tumors in many of the body’s bones. These tumors may keep the bone marrow from making enough healthy blood cells and may weaken the bones. 

Scientists do not fully understand the causes of multiple myeloma, but it has been found to be more common in some groups. These include older people, especially older men, and non-Hispanic Black individuals. Some common symptoms include bone pain, weakness or fatigue, weight loss, easy bruising or bleeding, frequent infections, and trouble breathing. 

According to the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, approximately 36,110 people living in the United States received a diagnosis of multiple myeloma in 2025. Furthermore, SEER estimates that about 12,030 people died of the disease in the same year.

More on multiple myeloma

• Smoldering multiple myeloma can lead to active disease, but a monoclonal antibody drug was approved to treat this condition in 2025 based on a clinical trial that found it lowered the risk of progression from high-risk smoldering myeloma to active multiple myeloma by 50%. Some researchers and practitioners, however, question how widely the treatment should be used. Read more in Cancer Today magazine.
• First-line treatment for multiple myeloma is often a cocktail of different drugs that target cancer cells in different ways, but in recent years immunotherapies, including bispecific engager molecules, have been approved to give patients more options. Read more about some of these new treatment options and how they have helped patients on the official AACR blog, Cancer Research Catalyst.
• Up to 50% of people with multiple myeloma will receive an autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) as part of their treatment. While ASCT can led to long-term remission, the procedure can be intense and require months to fully recover. But recent studies have found that the drug regimen taken to prepare the body for ASCT can also put the cancer into remission, allowing some patients to delay getting a transplant. Read more in Cancer Today.
• Considering the intensive therapies that patients with blood cancers like multiple myeloma may receive, the American Society of Clinical Oncology updated its guidelines in 2024 to encourage oncologists to refer anyone with a hematologic malignancy to palliative care, a specialized type of medical care that aims to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. But recent studies show that people with blood cancer are less likely to receive palliative care than those with solid tumors. Learn more in Cancer Today.

Survivor: Vicki W. Jones

Vicki W. Jones of Spokane, Washington, has been living with multiple myeloma for more than 20 years. She said she had never heard of multiple myeloma when she was diagnosed with it at the age of 51.

“There are two words I use all the time,” she said. “One is ‘progress’; the other is ‘progression.’ I am incredibly lucky that progress in cancer research has been faster than the progression of my disease.”

She gives credit to advances in chemotherapy and immunotherapy that have allowed her to utilize one treatment after another. She has been doing well on talquetamab (Talvey). Vicki’s cancer journey is featured in the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2024.

Survivor: Oya Gilbert

“It wasn’t an easy road to diagnosis,” said multiple myeloma patient Oya Gilbert. The Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, man was diagnosed after two years of seeking help for progressively painful episodes. He was treated with several therapeutics and a stem cell transplant, and his cancer is currently under control. He was surprised to learn that multiple myeloma is approximately twice as prevalent in African Americans as it is in the white population. Read his story in the AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report 2024.

how the AACR supports Research in this area

In 2019, Amin Sobh, PhD, of the University of Florida College of Medicine, received an AACR-Takeda Oncology Myeloma Research Fellowship to explore new ways to treat multiple myeloma. Thanks to the support of this grant, he identified adenylate kinase 2 (AK2) as a promising target, particularly for a subset of multiple myeloma patients with a high-risk genetic abnormality. In preclinical studies, Sobh found that blockade of AK2 inhibited the growth of certain multiple myeloma cells and made them more sensitive to the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib, which is approved to treat multiple myeloma. Further research is needed to determine if this strategy would be effective in patients.

“This grant provided essential support at the onset of my career, enabling me to pursue innovative research directions that have led to impactful findings and meaningful contributions to the field,” Sobh said.

In 2024, Sungjae Kim, PhD, of the Broad Institute, received an AACR-Genentech Cancer Disparities Research Fellowship to explore the question: What makes people with African ancestry at risk for developing myeloma? As part of his research, he plans to identify germline risk alleles or genes that are strongly associated with multiple myeloma precursor stages and then find potential ties between multiple myeloma precursors, inferred genetic ancestry, and polygenic risk score.

“I hope that this study will enhance the understanding of racial disparities in multiple myeloma and its precursor stages,” Kim said.

for more information

Please see our page on multiple myeloma, which includes information on treatment options.