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- Blood Cancer Volunteer Faces Myeloma Diagnosis
December 24, 2025
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.
Al-Ola Abdallah, MD, clinical director, hematologic malignancies and cellular therapeutics: "CAR-T cell, in other hands is taking your T-cells regardless of your bone marrow status, engineer it, and infuse it back to your body to attack the myeloma cells. Now, a lot of patients ask us, well, if transplant is working, why should I worry about CAR-T cell? So that's a great question. Well, the problem here is that, as we talked about it, 85% of myeloma patients newly diagnosed, this is by all evidence unfortunately will relapse. So, we have to kind of acknowledge the fact that we need some treatments. That's why we have many classes of therapies... at least 5 good classes of therapies for myeloma. So, the more we have classes the better we are. We are not yet into that situation that we say we cure myeloma.
Jessica Lovell, moderator: "So, we explained what CAR-T therapy is taking someone's immune cells, genetically engineering them to then go back in and fight the cancer. Just put into context what a big deal that is. This immunotherapy for patients like David."
Dr. Abdallah: "Well, I mean, first of all, we look at a lot of things. One of the major things we look is, is this treatment effective in, Mr. Frantz's stage. As we say, like when you get a lot of treatments, at this stage, it's, you're lucky if you keep the disease stable or have some response. To get complete response, you know, that's really impressive, you know. So, what CAR-T has shown us that, yeah, after all these treatments, you still can get an incomplete response. So that's one thing."
"Number 2 is this is the only treatment that we give it only one time. Every myeloma patient, and Mr. Frantze can tell you that he have to, he have to come to the clinic every week or have to be on a pill. You're getting a treatment only one time. And the first question patients are asking me after the CAR-T, what treatment I need to take? And I'll say, no, you don't need to take anything. You don't need to take any pills. You don't need to come every week for an IV injection or, or an IV chemotherapy or injection. So, the good thing about that is the quality of life and effectiveness and quality of life that actually be provided for all myeloma patients. So that's really how important this is for myeloma patients."
Moderator: "And how soon after do you know that it's been effective and it worked?
Dr. Abdallah: "Well, I have seen that effectiveness actually starts after 1week to 2 weeks. But, you know, officially, like I'll say 1 month that will confirm that."
Zara Mahmood Jafari, clinical pharmacy manager: "As Dr. Abdallah mentioned, CAR-T is a onetime infusion. It harnesses the patient's own immune cells. And so, it can be a lot more specific to the patient's disease. And so, it's definitely, another tool in the toolkit and something that we are learning a lot more about and have learned a lot about in the time that it's been available. So, it's been a really exciting time."
“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 they 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.”