I Really appreciate the information.,
I have a few characteristics that might influence SCT sooner than later,
I am an IGM myeloma person, this tends to be a bit more aggressive. I'm 1114 and I never achieved complete MRD remission.
Im still deciding! Thank you again.

The answer is yes, you can wait to do SCT and go right to maintenance therapy instead. SCT use to be the gold bar standard after induction therapy, but with successful initial therapy and newer drugs to try, you can now hold it off on it you fall out of remission. Instead, you would just add a new drug to your maintenance program. I would suggest you harvest your stem cells now to be used at a later time. Frozen stem cells can last for 10 years. They need a minimum of 4million stem cells to process for a SCT which can sometimes take several days to collect. I was lucky to collect 5M in 6 hours. What may influence your decision to perform a SCT after induction therapy? 1) If your genetics indicate you are at a higher risk instead of standard risk for MM, you might consider being more aggressive and doing a SCT (then go on maintenance). 2) There’s some evidence that SCT after induction therapy leads to longer remission times in patients. 3) Age- there is an age cut off number where the Drs might decide not to perform a SCT on a person. This cut off is in the 70’s.

Hope this helps

Jamie

There is an article on Healthtree about stem cell transplants. They seem to recommend not waiting till after 8-12 cycles because results do not show any improvements. Check out the article. I’m new ish but it seems they recommend early transplant

Wow! Wow! and WOW! Deno, you certainly are a very detailed person. We’re all so different, as will be our experiences. I can only give you mine. I’ve been on Dex, Revilmid for 26 months. During that time I also had Darzalex Faspro injections. I had stem cell harvesting early on. Currently in in a very good partial remission. No thought or conversation about stem cell transplant. I hope that you and your doctor can make a sound decision 🙏🏽❤️

Based on my risks due to comorbidities, I decided to forgo SCT completely. Preliminary studies are seeing newer drug therapies being as effective in prolonging life as SCT. And CAR-T looks promising as more trials are taking place.