From the Journals

Substantial long-term increase seen in multiple myeloma survival

Publish date: January 30, 2017
By
Richard Franki

 

FROM JAMA

The 5-year survival rate for multiple myeloma increased eightfold over an approximately 60-year span starting in the early 1950s, said Ali H. Mokdad, PhD, and his associates.

Patients with multiple myeloma had a 5-year relative survival rate of 6% in 1950-1954, compared with 49.8% in 2008-2013, according to data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (JAMA 2017;317[4]:388-406).

Five-year survival up 730% for multiple myeloma
In another part of the study that used deidentified death records from the National Center for Health Statistics and population counts from the Census Bureau, the NCHS, and the Human Mortality Database, mortality for multiple myeloma in 2014 was 3.9 per 100,000 population, putting it 16th among the 29 cancers included in the analysis, the investigators reported.

In 2014, there were about 13,000 deaths resulting from multiple myeloma, with 219,000 years of life lost, which ranked 17th among the 29 selected cancers, noted Dr. Mokdad and his associates at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, Seattle.

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