Patti Scialfa, Wife and Bandmate of Bruce Springsteen, Reveals Multiple Myeloma Diagnosis
A new rock star documentary is putting the spotlight on cancer. During a Toronto Film Festival screening of "Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band," it was revealed that Patti Scialfa, Springsteen's longtime collaborator and wife, has been battling multiple myeloma since 2018. It is the reason she has cut back on public appearances and band performances over the past eight years.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cells, a type of white blood cell found in bone marrow. These plasma cells normally produce antibodies that fight infection. In multiple myeloma, however, abnormal plasma cells grow uncontrollably, crowding healthy cells and damaging bones.
While there is no cure for multiple myeloma, significant progress has been made in treatment options. Therapies like stem cell transplants, antibody therapies and cellular immunotherapy have extended average survival rates from two to three years to seven to 10 years. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR T), which uses a patient's re-engineered immune cells to fight cancer, was FDA approved in 2021 and has shown promising results for patients with advanced myeloma who have relapsed after one or more therapies.
“Despite these improvements, there is still a lot of work to be done,” said Rachid Baz, MD, section head of Myeloma in Moffitt Cancer Center’s Department of Malignant Hematology. “We want to be able to think of treatment as curative in the future.”
Moffitt is a leading institution for multiple myeloma research. In 2018, thanks to a generous donation from multiple myeloma patient Mark Pentecost, the center established the Pentecost Family Myeloma Research Center, which is focused on finding new therapies and a cure for the disease within the next decade. One such advancement in development is the Ex Vivo Mathematical Myeloma Advisor, or EMMA. This tool can test a patient’s sensitivity to dozens of drugs at one time, individually and in combination, allowing for a more personalized approach to selecting the right therapy.
