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The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has developed a draft guideline detailing “best practices” in caring for patients with myeloma.
It is intended to help ensure “consistently excellent care” for myeloma patients over the age of 16 in England.
The guideline includes recommendations for diagnosing the disease, managing complications, communicating with patients, and ensuring access to appropriate care.
The draft guideline will remain open for public consultation until October 1, 2015.
“Advances in treatment over the last 15 years have seen more people with myeloma living longer, but there is still no cure,” said Mark Baker, clinical practice director for NICE.
“Our guideline, which is being developed by an independent group of experts, will set out best-practice care to ensure people live as normal a life as possible for as long as possible.”
The guideline’s provisional recommendations are as follows.
Communication and support: Offer prompt psychological assessment and support to myeloma patients at diagnosis and, as appropriate, at the beginning and end of each treatment, when the disease progresses, and when patients start to require end-of-life care.
Laboratory investigations to diagnose myeloma: For patients with suspected myeloma, healthcare professionals should use the same sample for all diagnostic and prognostic tests on bone marrow, so patients only have to have one biopsy.
Scans for patients with suspected myeloma: Offer imaging to all patients with a plasma cell disorder suspected to be myeloma. Doctors should consider whole-body MRI as the first imaging procedure.
Service delivery: Each hospital treating patients with myeloma who are over the age of 18 should ensure there is regional access to facilities for intensive inpatient chemotherapy or transplantation, renal support, spinal disease management, specialized pain management, therapeutic apheresis, radiotherapy, restorative dentistry and oral surgery, and clinical trials, particularly early phase trials.
Managing complications: Healthcare professionals should consider extending the pneumococcal vaccination to patients with myeloma who are under 65 in order to prevent infection.
This draft guideline also complements existing NICE guidance on the drug treatment of myeloma. It sets out which treatments—including stem cell transplants—should be used to manage the condition as well as those to prevent and treat bone disease and acute renal disease, which can be caused by myeloma. 
Photo courtesy of NIH
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has developed a draft guideline detailing “best practices” in caring for patients with myeloma.
It is intended to help ensure “consistently excellent care” for myeloma patients over the age of 16 in England.
The guideline includes recommendations for diagnosing the disease, managing complications, communicating with patients, and ensuring access to appropriate care.
The draft guideline will remain open for public consultation until October 1, 2015.
“Advances in treatment over the last 15 years have seen more people with myeloma living longer, but there is still no cure,” said Mark Baker, clinical practice director for NICE.
“Our guideline, which is being developed by an independent group of experts, will set out best-practice care to ensure people live as normal a life as possible for as long as possible.”
The guideline’s provisional recommendations are as follows.
Communication and support: Offer prompt psychological assessment and support to myeloma patients at diagnosis and, as appropriate, at the beginning and end of each treatment, when the disease progresses, and when patients start to require end-of-life care.
Laboratory investigations to diagnose myeloma: For patients with suspected myeloma, healthcare professionals should use the same sample for all diagnostic and prognostic tests on bone marrow, so patients only have to have one biopsy.
Scans for patients with suspected myeloma: Offer imaging to all patients with a plasma cell disorder suspected to be myeloma. Doctors should consider whole-body MRI as the first imaging procedure.
Service delivery: Each hospital treating patients with myeloma who are over the age of 18 should ensure there is regional access to facilities for intensive inpatient chemotherapy or transplantation, renal support, spinal disease management, specialized pain management, therapeutic apheresis, radiotherapy, restorative dentistry and oral surgery, and clinical trials, particularly early phase trials.
Managing complications: Healthcare professionals should consider extending the pneumococcal vaccination to patients with myeloma who are under 65 in order to prevent infection.
This draft guideline also complements existing NICE guidance on the drug treatment of myeloma. It sets out which treatments—including stem cell transplants—should be used to manage the condition as well as those to prevent and treat bone disease and acute renal disease, which can be caused by myeloma.
Photo courtesy of NIH
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has developed a draft guideline detailing “best practices” in caring for patients with myeloma.
It is intended to help ensure “consistently excellent care” for myeloma patients over the age of 16 in England.
The guideline includes recommendations for diagnosing the disease, managing complications, communicating with patients, and ensuring access to appropriate care.
The draft guideline will remain open for public consultation until October 1, 2015.
“Advances in treatment over the last 15 years have seen more people with myeloma living longer, but there is still no cure,” said Mark Baker, clinical practice director for NICE.
“Our guideline, which is being developed by an independent group of experts, will set out best-practice care to ensure people live as normal a life as possible for as long as possible.”
The guideline’s provisional recommendations are as follows.
Communication and support: Offer prompt psychological assessment and support to myeloma patients at diagnosis and, as appropriate, at the beginning and end of each treatment, when the disease progresses, and when patients start to require end-of-life care.
Laboratory investigations to diagnose myeloma: For patients with suspected myeloma, healthcare professionals should use the same sample for all diagnostic and prognostic tests on bone marrow, so patients only have to have one biopsy.
Scans for patients with suspected myeloma: Offer imaging to all patients with a plasma cell disorder suspected to be myeloma. Doctors should consider whole-body MRI as the first imaging procedure.
Service delivery: Each hospital treating patients with myeloma who are over the age of 18 should ensure there is regional access to facilities for intensive inpatient chemotherapy or transplantation, renal support, spinal disease management, specialized pain management, therapeutic apheresis, radiotherapy, restorative dentistry and oral surgery, and clinical trials, particularly early phase trials.
Managing complications: Healthcare professionals should consider extending the pneumococcal vaccination to patients with myeloma who are under 65 in order to prevent infection.
This draft guideline also complements existing NICE guidance on the drug treatment of myeloma. It sets out which treatments—including stem cell transplants—should be used to manage the condition as well as those to prevent and treat bone disease and acute renal disease, which can be caused by myeloma.