What is mom's prognosis with multiple myleoma and an uncontrolled bleed?
1 answer
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Last updated: Jul 22, 2010
Q
My mon who is 84 years old has multiple myleoma. She developed bleeding and has been receiving transfusions - up to 8 over a few days. The bleed cannot be found and she refused being put on a ventilator for surgery. She had a 50/50 chance of not coming through it. They called hospice and she left with less than 2 units of blood. She said she would "bleed out". What is her prognosis?
A
Andrew Putnam, M.D. is the director of the Palliative Care Program at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and Georgetown University.
Unfortunately your mothers prognosis is very grim. With Multiple Myeloma and uncontrolled bleeding, she probably has a day or two to a week or two. There is no way to be sure and occasionally people live much longer than we expect. In this case, sadly your mother is likely to die very soon if she has needed this much blood and the bleeding does not stop on its own.
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