Run and Walk to Support Myeloma

Dan Vogl, MD, is assistant professor of medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center. Dr. Vogl works with patients in the hematologic malignancies and bone marrow transplant program. 

The Philadelphia Multiple Myeloma Networking Group (PMMNG) is holding its fifth annual Miles for Myeloma 5K Run/Walk Saturday, April 27 on Martin Luther King Drive in Philadelphia.

Together with patients and their families, I’ll be there to help raise money to cure multiple myeloma.
The PMMNG is a fantastic group of patients and caregivers that provides support to the local myeloma community. Funds raised from this annual event support:

• The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
• The International Myeloma Foundation
• The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation

I am proud to be serving again as honorary co-chair for the event.

What is multiple myeloma?

Myeloma is a cancer of bone marrow plasma cells, which manifests in patients as low blood counts, painful bone lesions and fractures, kidney injury, and increased risk of infections. With several new medicines approved over the past 15 years, we can now routinely hope for many years of good quality life with the disease. However, we still do not have a cure, and improvements in therapy are certainly needed.

I became interested in multiple myeloma during my oncology training, and the focus of my career has become treating this difficult disease and researching ways to improve therapies.

Treating multiple myeloma at Penn Medicine

Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center has a great myeloma team.

Dr. Edward Stadtmauer, Dr. Brendan Weiss, and I focus on this disease, and we have a talented and dedicated group of nurse practitioners, chemotherapy nurses, research nurses, data coordinators, and staff, who all work hard to improve the lives of our patients.

Our current research program includes clinical trials for myeloma of completely new medicines, exciting immunotherapy approaches using the body’s own immune cells to attack cancer cells, and improvements to bone marrow transplantation.

In addition, we have expanded our research efforts to cover conditions that precede myeloma, like MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance) and smoldering myeloma , as well as related disorders, like amyloidosis.

Research at Penn is focused on improving our ability to target the unique biology of myeloma cells. This includes ongoing clinical trials looking at ways to overcome resistance that myeloma cells can develop to some of our most effective therapies, as well as clinical trials of new medications targeting genes that regulate myeloma growth. We are actively working to understand how our treatments work, why some patients respond to them better than others, and how to make them more effective for everyone.

Participating in Clinical Trials at Penn

Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center has many options for patients with myeloma to participate in clinical trials for cancer.

Participating in clinical trials is important, because these trials advance our knowledge of how to treat this disease. The only way that we can truly understand whether, how, and for whom a treatment works is by studying the treatment in the patients receiving it. And we can only do that in the context of a clinical trial. Clinical trials also give patients access to new treatments, each of which is based on an idea of how to treat myeloma better.

Support Miles for Myeloma

Events like Miles for Myeloma raise important funds to allow this important research to continue. Last year, more than 1,000 participants, volunteers, and sponsors raised more than $140,000 bringing the total raised by this event to over $400,000 since its inception in 2009.

My own research has been supported by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, so I have seen firsthand the effects of this kind of fundraising.

In addition, Miles for Myeloma is a lot of fun. The setting along the Schuylkill River is beautiful, the opportunity to be outside (hopefully in good weather) is wonderful, and the patients and families who participate are some of the most amazing people I have ever met. They also have snacks available and a raffle with some great prizes.

As is my tradition, I’ll be walking the 5K, since I have not run that far since college. I’ll look forward to seeing everyone there.

• Register for the Miles for Myeloma 5K here.
• Join the Penn Medicine / Abramson Cancer Center team by choosing “Join Your Team.”
• You can find information about the Miles for Myeloma here.
• Learn more information about the Philadelphia Multiple Myeloma Networking Group.