Outcomes in Pretreated, Refractory Multiple Myeloma Remain Poor

Outcomes for patients with heavily pretreated or highly refractory multiple myeloma remain poor, despite the availability of newer agents, according to a study published in The Oncologist.¹

In a retrospective study, researchers evaluated the electronic health records of 500 and 162 patients with multiple myeloma through the IMS LifeLink and OPTUM databases, respectively, who were refractory to both a proteasome inhibitor and an immunomodulatory drug, and who showed disease progression within 60 days of their most recent regimen.

The researchers observed similar median overall survival for eligible patients in both the IMS LifeLink and OPTUM databases.

Upon subgroup analyses of the IMS LIfeLink data set, median overall survival was found to be longer in patients who were younger than 65 years of age, than for those who were at least 65 years of age at eligibility. The same was true among patients with good or unreported performance status at last claim, compared to those with poor performance status.

Reference

1. Usmani S, Ahmadi T, Ng Y, et al. Analysis of real-world data on overall survival in multiple myeloma patients with ≥3 prior lines of therapy including a proteasome inhibitor (PI) and an immunomodulatory drug (IMiD), or double refractory to a PI and an IMiD. Oncologist. 2016 Aug 2. doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2016-0104 [Epub ahead of print]