Hamza Hassan, MD, thinks the future is bright for patients with Myeloma and Amyloidosis. With encouraging research and treatment development opportunities, he moved from Boston to Buffalo to join the team at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center to continue his work.
Both conditions “largely remain incurable but very treatable, so there’s a lot of hope. I think a lot of translational research and clinical research that I do, I think I can help the field quiet a lot with that and make a difference in our patients’ lives,” says Dr. Hassan, an Associate Professor of Oncology and Hematologic Oncologist in the Department of Medicine, Myeloma and Amyloidosis Division at Roswell Park.
“When I was in medical school at Boston University, we had few medications approved for these conditions. Over the last decade and a half, we’ve come a long way, with the development of new cellular therapies, especially CAR T therapy that the whole community is excited about, as well as bio-specific and newer drugs like cell mods,” he says.
The next decade will bring it continued developments and advances in treatment, Dr. Hassan says. “We are still trying to decipher the patients who really will benefit from more and more aggressive therapy so we can spare other patients from the side effects that come along with it. It’s only going to get better in terms of making individualized treatment approaches and having more hope at each stage. When the cancer comes back, there should be more treatment available. Hope at each level is really important.”
View Dr. Hassan's most recent presentation on Amyloidosis here.
