NCCN announces new guidelines for patients with multiple myeloma

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recently announced the latest addition to the library of NCCN Guidelines for Patients^™, the NCCN Guidelines for Patients^™: Multiple Myeloma. This new resource is a patient-friendly translation of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines^™) for Multiple Myeloma, which physicians use when determining appropriate cancer treatment. NCCN also offers NCCN Guidelines for Patients^™ for Breast and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancers.

More than 20,000 new cases of multiple myeloma are diagnosed in the United States each year, with most cases occurring in older patients. Treatment of multiple myeloma has improved dramatically over the past decade with the introduction of new drugs and combination drug therapies, although the challenge of preventing recurrence remains.

The NCCN Guidelines^™ are developed by multidisciplinary panels of experts from NCCN Member Institutions and feature algorithms or "decision trees" that address every appropriate treatment option from initial work up throughout the course of the disease. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients^™ translate these professional guidelines in a clear, step-by-step manner that patients can use as the basis for making decisions and discussing options with their physicians.

The NCCN Guidelines for Patients^™ are available free of charge at NCCN.com, which also features additional informative articles for patients and caregivers.

SOURCE National Comprehensive Cancer Network