Patti Scialfa marks eight years of cancer recovery, Bruce Springsteen says

Bruce Springsteen has shared that his wife and E Street Band bandmate, Patti Scialfa, is now in remission from multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer she has lived with for more than eight years. He gave the update in a video message recorded around an August 1 fundraiser for the Pan-Mass Challenge bike ride, which benefits Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where Scialfa has been treated. "As you know, Patti's been living with her multiple myeloma for over eight years. But now, thankfully, she is in remission," he said.

The 76-year-old Springsteen used the video, shared by the Pan-Mass Challenge, to praise the institute's ongoing commitment to cancer research and thank the doctors and "amazing team" who have treated his wife.

Scialfa first confirmed her diagnosis publicly in 2024, revealing it in the tour documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. She said she was diagnosed in 2018 with multiple myeloma, a condition in which cancerous plasma cells build up in bone marrow and crowd out healthy blood cells. "This affects my immune system, so I just have to be careful what I choose to do and where I choose to go," she said at the time.

Scialfa has been part of the rock group's lineup, and its only woman member, since 1984, providing backing vocals, tambourine and guitar; she married Springsteen in 1991, and the couple have three adult children. Since her diagnosis she has performed only select shows and songs rather than full sets. "That's the new normal for me right now, and I'm OK with that," she said in 2024.

In the fundraiser message, Springsteen said Patti's journey had taught him something he hoped "every American can understand": that medical research "isn't an idea... it's the reason families find hope when hope seems hardest to find." He closed the video with an acoustic performance of "Born to Run."

In 2023, Springsteen inducted Scialfa into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, calling her his "secret weapon" and praising her "deft lyrical work" as a songwriter. He has continued to tour and make guest appearances since, recently joining Bon Jovi onstage in New York for "Who Says You Can't Go Home" and "The Promised Land."