The John C. Davis Myeloma and Amyloid Program at Tufts Medical Center's Cancer Center in downtown Boston is home to some of the world’s top experts in plasma cell disease detection, treatment and research. Funded by a benefactor who is a multiple myeloma patient, we are focused on ensuring that patients with plasma cell diseases such as myeloma or AL amyloidosis receive excellent up-to-date patient care and treatment, as well as education and personal and family support.
Our program is multi-disciplinary in every sense of the word. The team is made up of hematologists who are plasma cell disease experts, stem cell transplant physicians, kidney, orthopedic and heart specialists, experienced pathologists and radiologists, nurses and nurse practitioners and social workers. We also have expert nurse practitioners and physicians perform all bone marrow studies and have one of the most experienced stem cell transplant laboratory and nursing staffs in the world.
What the Davis Myeloma and Amyloid Program in Boston does differently
The mission of the John C. Davis Program at Tufts Medical Center is to treat patients in the most effective ways, to care for them and their families, and to advance the treatment and understanding of plasma cell diseases by means of clinical trials and laboratory research.
We believe it is critical to meet and evaluate patients as soon as possible, even on the day after a patient first contacts us. Our clinical staff is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by phone and e-mail, to provide the diagnostic and therapeutic expertise as well as the treatments, teaching and care that the patient and their family need. Tufts Medical Center is the home of major transplant programs – stem cell, kidney and heart – and internationally known experts in those fields. The John C. Davis Program is integrated into those critical aspects of therapy should they be required.
MGRS Clinic
The John C. Davis Program is also home to the Tufts Medical Center Monoclonal Gammopathy of Renal Significance (MGRS) clinic. This clinic specializes in treatment of kidney impairment that so often accompanies plasma cell diseases. Our interdisciplinary team is made up of experienced nephrologists who specialize in MGRS.
Research Opportunities
Through the Neely Center for Clinical Research the John C. Davis Program also offers an array of clinical trials for patients at all stages of disease – newly diagnosed smoldering or active myeloma, newly diagnosed systemic AL amyloidosis including patients with cardiac involvement, relapsed disease of all types, and novel trials involving the most promising new agents such as daratumumab for myeloma and systemic AL amyloidosis.
Our groundbreaking research includes a diagnostic screening trial for smoldering multiple myeloma patients (the SAVE trial) that screens patients for genes associated with development of AL amyloidosis. This study aims to promote earlier diagnosis of amyloidosis and increase our genetic understanding of the disease. Such trials show the commitment of the Davis Program to clinical research and patient well-being.
A strong history of excellence
Tufts Medical Center has a history of providing exceptional services like these to patients with plasma cell disease. Patients have received autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplants at Tufts MC for the past quarter century – including many patients with heart damage from AL amyloidosis or kidney damage on dialysis. The early multicenter clinical trials in myeloma and systemic AL amyloidosis were performed at Tufts. Tufts was the first center in New England to enroll patients in the important trial of daratumumab combined with pomalidomide for relapsed myeloma and the landmark ixazomib trial for relapsed AL amyloidosis.
