VIDEO: Age, chemical exposure cause myeloma risk

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I think it's very important to look at the risk factors of multiple myeloma. So multiple myeloma is a blood cancer that is more common when we get older. So age is one of the risk factors of multiple myeloma. And the other risk factor is also, you know, being a male, for example, is associated with higher risk than being a female when it comes to risk of multiple myeloma. We know also that multiple myeloma could have happened more commonly when we get exposure to certain chemicals, especially pesticides. And this is something that we always ask patients about prior exposure to chemicals which could have increased the risk of multiple myeloma.

We also know that multiple myeloma is more common in patients with the precursor conditions, including monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance or MGUS, or a term called smoldering multiple myeloma. Both of those are precursor conditions that if a person has one of those, they're at higher risk of getting multiple myeloma, you know, with longer follow up. Also, the multiple myeloma is more common in certain racial and ethnic groups, for example, in African Americans or Black persons in the US, it's more common when compared to whites or Caucasians in general, or Hispanic patients. So I think that's another important subgroup of patients where we see higher risk of multiple myeloma. And this is likely related to higher incidence of precursor conditions, including both monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance and also smoldering multiple myeloma.