After several unsuccessful treatments, Marilyn Tams has found a new lease on life, thanks to a new medication.
In 2023, Marilyn Tams visited her doctor for a sore knee, but routine blood tests revealed serious findings: low red and white blood cell counts. This led to Tams being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer that affects a person’s bone marrow.
Tams started treatment immediately, but her first line of treatment was unsuccessful, and her body began developing tumours. After a second line of treatment also showed no signs of improvement, her doctors started discussing a promising new drug, teclistamab.
While teclistamab has shown great potential to one day become the standard of care for multiple myeloma, the drug is still being studied and is currently in a phase 3 clinical trial at the University of Calgary. However, thanks to this trial, patients like Tams can access teclistamab if prescribed by their doctors.
Following an unsuccessful stem cell transplant, Tams’ doctors recommended trying teclistamab. Tams, who lives in Taber, was visiting her daughter in Calgary when she received her first set of blood test results since starting the drug. “Wonder of wonders, my numbers were back down to almost nothing!” she recalls. “I cried tears of joy all the way back to Taber. Almost a year after diagnosis, we finally have a drug that works.” She now receives weekly injections of teclistamab and will continue this regimen for the foreseeable future.
Although Tams is not technically in remission, the drug is successfully keeping her cancer at bay. “I feel very hopeful for the future, to spend time with our six children and five grandchildren,” she affirms.
