

Once quickly lethal and still humbling, multiple myeloma may be in a ‘golden age’ of treatment
If you can call someone who gets a rare form of cancer lucky, then Deb Graff says she fits the bill. At age 72, Graff has survived nine years with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer whose life expectancy used to be measured in months. “I wasn’t ready to go anywhere,” said Graff, who lives in South Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod. “I wanted to see my grandkids grow up and still be an aggravation to my husband.” She was lucky enough to get multiple myeloma after the 2003 release of a


Using Medicine and Science to Improve the Quality of Life
Antoni Ribas Professor of medicine, surgery and molecular and medical pharmacology at the University of California Los Angeles and a director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at U.C.L.A. In January 2012, R. Stewart Scannell’s doctor flatly informed him that melanoma had spread throughout his body and into his brain and he had just months to live. “There was no sympathy, no empathy, no nothing,” Mr. Scannell said. Mr. Scannell, who was 64 at the time, didn’t wa