ORLANDO – Age 70 may be the new 60, at least when it comes to outcomes following autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (auto-HCT) in multiple myeloma.
Benjamin Pena/Medscape
Dr. Anita D'Souza
A large-scale study looking at transplant outcomes across age groups in multiple myeloma patients found similar rates of nonrelapse mortality, relapse/progression, progression-free survival, and overall survival between patients who were aged 70 years and older and those who were aged 60-69 years.
“Age has no implication in terms of the antimyeloma effect of transplant,” Anita D’Souza, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, said at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
The study analyzed outcomes from 15,999 multiple myeloma patients aged 20 years or older in the United States who received a single auto-HCT with melphalan conditioning within 12 months of diagnosis between 2013 and 2017. Within that dataset, the researchers compared outcomes from 7,032 patients aged 60-69 years and 2,092 patients aged 70 years and older.
This is the largest study of auto-HCT in older adults with multiple myeloma, the researchers said, and provides important data about the benefit of transplant at any age.
Univariate analysis showed that 100-day nonrelapse mortality was higher in patients aged 70 years and older – at 1% – compared with younger patients (P less than .01). Also, 2-year overall survival was lower in older adults – at 86% – compared with 60- to 69-year-olds (P less than .01).
However, on multivariate analysis with 60- to 69-year-olds as the reference group, patients older than age 70 years had similar nonrelapse mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 1.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1, 1.7, P = .06). The same trends were seen for relapse/progression (HR 1.0, 95% CI, 0.9-1, P = .6), progression-free survival (HR 1.1, 95% CI 1-1.2, P = .2), and overall survival (HR 1.2, 95% CI 1-1.4, P = .03). Given the large sample size, a P value of .01 was considered statistically significant.
Over the course of the study period, the percentage of patients aged 70 and older who received a transplant grew each year, rising to 28% by 2017. But Dr. D’Souza said that number is still too low given the safety and efficacy of auto-HCT in these patients.
“Every patient with myeloma should be referred to a transplant center,” she said.
Dr. D’Souza reported financial disclosures related to EDO-Mundapharma, Merck, Prothena, Sanofi, TeneoBio, Prothena, Pfizer, Imbrium, and Akcea. Other study authors reported financial relationships with multiple companies including Celgene, Takeda, BMS, and Janssen.
SOURCE: Munshi PN et al. ASH 2019, Abstract 782.
