Blood Cancer Volunteer Faces Myeloma Diagnosis

In 1980, David Frantze’s nephew and godson was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 4. Just 4 years later at the age of 8, he passed away from the disease. That led David to a commitment to volunteering for Blood Cancer United, formerly the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

“I became a local volunteer. I raised money here locally,” he says. “Then, about 17 years ago, I had the privilege of serving as the chairman of the national board of directors for 2 years. At the time, I had no blood cancer. I’m just blessed that the support I was able to give raised a lot of money. It’s a great program and funds great research.”

Then, in 2017, a tick bite led to David’s own diagnosis of blood cancer.

“I had pretty severe symptoms from that tick bite,” says David. “I got out of the hospital after being treated for that, and everything cleared up. But my doctor was concerned about the anemia that was found during my hospital stay.”

David’s doctor referred him to a cancer specialist.

“It turned out that they diagnosed me with multiple myeloma,” he says. “Had I not had that tick bite, I wouldn’t have known about it. At first, it was very scary.”

Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cells – the white blood cells that are part of the body’s immune system. They are found mostly in the bone marrow. Multiple myeloma develops when the plasma cells produce defective antibodies and damage the bone marrow. The cells can also damage the bone and kidneys.

Cancer relapse

By 2018, David had undergone a bone marrow transplant and was doing well. But in 2022, his numbers began trending in the wrong direction, which is not unusual for people who have multiple myeloma.

“To reach remission is to get the bone marrow biopsy clean of any plasma cells and the PET scan also clean of any disease that is appearing,” says Al-Ola Abdallah, MD, clinical director, hematologic malignancies and cellular therapeutics at The University of Kansas Cancer Center. “So that’s the deepest remission and is a significant milestone because it reflects that we can keep a patient in remission for a longer time. Mr. Frantze never actually achieved that.”

Just a few decades ago, patients who received a multiple myeloma diagnosis might have been given only 6 months to 2 years to live. Today, thanks to new drugs and therapies, patients may live 15 years or longer and have a better quality of life.

Because of David’s background and knowledge of blood cancers, he has been actively involved in his care. He researched treatments and learned about CAR T-cell therapies. He knew which CAR T treatment he wanted to have if he was a candidate for it. When the one he wanted was FDA-approved, he read through the clinical trial results.

Benefits outweigh risks

CAR T-cell therapy has been approved for multiple myeloma patients who have undergone other treatments and their multiple myeloma has relapsed. Because David had never reached full remission and his condition had worsened, he was a good candidate for the therapy.

“One of the major things we look at is if this treatment is effective at a person’s cancer stage,” Dr. Abdallah says. “CAR T therapy is given only 1 time. You don’t need to come every week for IV infusion, and you don’t need to take pills. So it improves quality of life for myeloma patients as well.”

Dr. Abdallah points out that while there are risks to undergoing CAR T-cell therapy, just as there are with other cancer therapies, the benefits usually outweigh the risks. “Myeloma is still, unfortunately, the most common cause of death for myeloma patients,” he says. “So getting CAR T therapy makes a lot of sense in terms of the benefits outweighing the risks.”

In addition, CAR T-cell therapy harnesses the patient’s own immune cells so can be more specific in treating the disease. Whereas chemotherapy affects all types of cells, not just cancer cells, which results in more widespread side effects such as nausea, vomiting and hair loss.

“This is not a hopeless condition anymore,” David says. “With CAR T-cell therapy, we have dramatically turned the tables on multiple myeloma. It’s not curable, but new treatments have really made a dent in it.”