You are at the center of everything we do at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Here, we surround you with a team of specialists who work together closely to provide collaborative care and compassionate support throughout your treatment.
Our experts evaluate and treat all types of amyloidosis. We guide you every step of the way, combining our deep clinical expertise with a commitment to meet your unique needs.
Why Choose Fred Hutch?
Amyloidosis Expertise
Amyloidosis is not considered cancer. But the most common type (light chain amyloidosis, or AL) is caused by abnormal plasma cells. It is similar to cancer of the plasma cells (multiple myeloma) and involves similar treatments. This is why amyloidosis experts, like ours at Fred Hutch, are often cancer physicians (hematologist-oncologists).
Experienced Diagnosis and Care
Because amyloidosis is so rare, most hematologist-oncologists in the community see only one or two people with this condition in their entire career. At Fred Hutch, we’ve seen more than 300 new patients with primary or secondary amyloidosis in the past five years — experience that translates into state-of-the-art diagnosis and care for you.
Comprehensive Amyloidosis Treatment
Team-based care is essential if amyloidosis affects tissues and organs throughout your body, as it often does. Fred Hutch and UW Medicine bring together physicians from multiple fields, including hematology/oncology, cardiology, nephrology, neurology and others, to provide multidisciplinary treatment.
Advancing New Approaches
Along with offering standard chemotherapies and targeted therapies, we’re involved in amyloidosis clinical trials to develop new treatments, such as amyloid-removing agents. To advance care for patients everywhere, we collaborate with amyloidosis experts at other treatment centers, including Mayo Clinic and Boston University.
Bone Marrow Transplant for Amyloidosis
The Fred Hutch Bone Marrow Transplant Program consistently achieves higher-than-expected transplant survival rates. We’ve performed more bone marrow and stem cell transplants than any other institution in the world. Since 2001, we’ve transplanted 60 people with amyloidosis.
NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center
We are a comprehensive cancer center, a designation from the National Cancer Institute that reflects our scientific leadership and the depth and breadth of our research to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer. Our physicians and scientists bring the same commitment to amyloidosis and other blood-related diseases.
Learn About Amyloidosis
Amyloidosis is a potentially serious and very rare disease that involves abnormal protein (amyloid) building up in your tissues and organs. Fred Hutch offers collaborative amyloidosis treatment from a team of experts who can address the wide range of health care needs you may have.
Treatment for Amyloidosis
Treatment for amyloidosis is complex and must be tailored to each individual, so it’s important to be treated at a specialized center with expertise in this disease. But because amyloidosis is rare, many hospitals and clinics do not have much experience with it.
Amyloidosis Care Team
At Fred Hutch, you receive care from a team of providers with extensive experience in your disease. Your team includes physicians, a patient care coordinator, a registered nurse, an advanced practice provider and others, based on your needs. You also have access to experts like nutritionists, social workers, acupuncturists, psychiatrists and more who specialize in supporting people with cancer or blood disorders.
Latest Treatments and Clinical Trials
For some people, taking part in a clinical study may be the best treatment choice. Access to clinical studies by researchers at Fred Hutch and UW Medicine is one reason many patients come to to us for care.
Important areas of research include:
- New combinations of chemotherapy medicines and steroids
- Stem cell transplants for amyloidosis
- Medicines that stimulate the removal of amyloid from the body
- For familial amyloidosis, RNA interference therapy that can turn off the production of the abnormal TTR protein by the liver
- Palliative care to improve your quality of life and comfort
Our research interests also include studies to better understand the basics of the disease and its risk factors and to help more patients receive a diagnosis earlier.