Noffar Bar, MD, is a hematologist who cares for patients with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells—the white blood cells that make antibodies to protect the body against infection. She treats patients at all stages of multiple myeloma disease, from a precancerous stage called “smoldering” myeloma to newly diagnosed myeloma and relapsed refractory myeloma, a type that isn’t responding to treatment.
“I was drawn to myeloma during my residency,” says Dr. Bar. “I was interested in the fact that it was a multisystem disease that can affect different organs, such as the kidneys, the nerves, the clotting system, and the heart. But what I particularly loved was that we really were able to give patients a better quality of life.”
Treatments are designed to eliminate myeloma cells. “They are better than they were 10 years ago and continue to improve all the time,” she says. They include a range of options that are effective and tolerable and can help people live longer. Dr. Bar specializes in all treatment modalities for myeloma, including CAR T-cell therapy and stem cell transplant.
“I like to be honest and realistic with patients,” she says. “I let them know that multiple myeloma is an incurable disease, but there have been tremendous changes in how we care for it, and people are living longer to the point where we almost consider it a chronic disease. My goal is to get patients to live a good quality of life—where their symptoms are limited and we can keep them under control for many years.”
An assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Bar is involved with several clinical trials investigating treatment for myeloma. She is especially interested in the most effective ways to use T-cell redirection therapy, which involves directing the body’s T cells, which are part of the body’s immune system, to recognize and attack myeloma. “There are very different ways of doing this, and we want to understand how to use these agents most effectively,” she says.
