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Publication — IRIC

Newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients treated with tandem auto-allogeneic stem cell transplant have better overall survival with similar outcomes at time of relapse compared to patients who received autologous transplant only.

Long-term survival in patients progressing after tandem autologous-allogeneic stem cell transplant (SCT) has been reported, suggesting a persistent graft-versus-myeloma (GvM) effect even after post-transplant progression. In order to confirm this observation, we updated the results of our previously published cohort of 92 newly diagnosed myeloma patients who received tandem transplant and compared them with 81 contemporary patients who received autologous transplant only. With a median follow-up of 13.1 and 10.2 years respectively, median overall survival (OS) in the tandem group has not been reached, compared with 6.1 years after auto SCT (p≤0.001). Disease progression occurred less frequently after tandem transplant, with an estimated 10-year cumulative incidence of 49% versus 76% (p≤0.001). Cumulative incidence of extensive chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) was high at 83%, with modest benefits on OS (60% vs 49%, p=0.550) but sharp improvement of progression-free survival (PFS; 55% vs 10%, p=0.002) at 10 years associated with development of cGVHD. After first progression, median OS was 5.8 years in tandem and 5.2 years in the autologous group (p=0.062); median PFS was also similar. Despite confirmation of better outcomes after upfront tandem transplant, our data do not support persistence of a strong, clinically significant graft-versus-myeloma effect after first progression, emphasizing the need to better characterize the GvM effect.

Publication date
September 27, 2020
Principal Investigators
LeBlanc R, Claveau JS, Ahmad I, Delisle JS, Bambace N, Bernard L, Cohen S, Kiss T, Lachance S, Landais S, Roy DC, Sauvageau G, Roy J
PubMed reference
Clin Transplant 2020:e14099
PubMed ID
32981146
Affiliation
Division of Hematology, Oncology and Transplantation, Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont and Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada.