Welcome at CRAB Project Website
The CRAB project is designed to raise the awareness of primary care physicians of multiple myeloma, diagnostic options and novel approaches in the treatment of this disease, thus giving the patient the opportunity to receive timely and effective therapy.
The most common symptoms leading patients with multiple myeloma to a doctor
-
anaemia + hyperviscosity syndrome
fatigue, breathlessness, general feebleness, blurred vision, uncertainty when walking, headache -
pain in the skeleton
most frequently the vertical skeleton (vertebrogenic algic syndrome, pathological fracture in case the skeleton is affected by myeloma cells) -
recurrent infections
especially respiratory ones -
signs of renal insufficiency
edems, urinal disorders -
"incidental" laboratory finding
high sedimentatiopn rate (often up to 100), anaemia (especially normo- or macrocytar), high total protein (often over 100 gpl), hypocalcaemia, isolated elevation of ALP, high urea, creatinine, protein in urine, paraprotein detection
The Story of a 63-year-old Woman
Anaemic syndrome /
Normocytic, normochromic anemia
Indiscriminate initiation of oral iron therapy
3 months later, back pain and metrorrhagia
Progression on anaemia – normocytic, normochromic
Gynaecological malignancy ruled out
Vitamin B12 i.m. added wrongly
Multiple myeloma
The symptoms of multiple myeloma are initially most nonspecific, which is why patients with complaints will first contact general practitioners, neurologists, orthopedicians, and rehabilitation specialists. This explains why awareness of primary care physicians of possible presentations and symptoms of multiple myeloma is absolutely critical for the timely diagnosis of this disease. It is just these physicians who should consider, in the differential diagnosis process, also the possibility of multiple myeloma, perform special investigations and, if confirming the suspicion, refer the patient to a specialist, that is, to an outpatient unit of haematology.
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Latest News
24.10.2011 | CRAB newly within the educational project PIPPL (PIFGP – Practical Information For General Practitioners)
The main group the PIPPL project is focused on are the general practitioners. That's the reason why we joined this system also with multiple myeloma. Presentations in the form of articles and active banners are sent electronically to general practitioners who can download the leaflet of our project at any time and also respond by e-discussion. The implementer of the project is the PHC company.
CRAB Project is supported by:
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