Articles tagged with: Survival
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Results from a small Australian study provide new evidence that the immune systems of myeloma patients may play an important role in why some patients survive much longer than others.
In particular, the Australian researchers found that myeloma patients who live for more than 10 years after diagnosis have more robust immune function as compared to other myeloma patients.
Certain killer immune cells were more common, and divided more readily, in long-term myeloma survivors than in patients with shorter survival.
The investigators also found that long-term survivors had more helper cells (which promote …
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Being Overweight At Diagnosis Associated With Better Prognosis In Myeloma – In a recent study using data for U.S. veterans, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis found that the extent to which a multiple myeloma patient is overweight at diagnosis may affect their prognosis. Among the patients studied, those who were more overweight at the time of diagnosis had better prognoses. The researchers used data on each patient's body mass index (BMI) and found that overweight patients (BMI of 25 kg/m2 to 29.9 kg/m2) and obese patients (BMI of 30 kg/m2 or above) had the lowest risk of death compared to healthy-weight patients (BMI of 18.5 kg/m2 to 24.9 kg/m2) and underweight patients (BMI below 18.5 kg/m2). Underweight patients had the highest risk of death. BMI is a measure of how overweight, or underweight, a person is. It is calculated based on a person’s height and weight. The researchers also found that weight loss of 10 percent or more in the year leading up to diagnosis was associated with an increased risk of death. For more information, please see the study in the journal The Oncologist (abstract).
Exposure To Dichloromethane May Increase The Risk Of Developing Myeloma – Results of a recent analysis conducted in China show that occupational exposure to the compound dichloromethane, or methylene chloride, increases the risk of developing multiple myeloma. In particular, people exposed to dichloromethane were twice as likely to develop myeloma as those who were not exposed to dichloromethane. However, the results of the analysis also showed that dichloromethane did not increase the risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, and certain solid tumors, such as breast, lung, and brain cancers. dichloromethane is frequently used as a paint stripper and a degreaser; it has also been used in the food industry. For more information, please refer to the study in Cancer Causes & Control (abstract).
Soft-Tissue Extramedullary Disease Is Associated With Particularly Poor Prognosis – Czech researchers recently found that extramedullary disease that develops in the soft tissue of a myeloma patient is associated with poorer prognosis than extramedullary disease that develops adjacent to a bone. However, both negatively impact overall survival. Extramedullary disease occurs when malignant plasma cells form tumors outside the bone, in organs, soft tissue, or adjacent to bones but outside the bone marrow. Such tumors are more common in relapsed/refractory myeloma patients than in newly diagnosed patients. The Czech researchers analyzed data for 226 relapsed/refractory myeloma patients, 24 percent of whom developed extramedullary disease at relapse. They found that the median time from diagnosis to the development of extramedullary disease was similar, regardless of the type of extramedullary disease (21 months for soft tissue disease and 23 months for disease adjacent to the bone). However, overall survival for patients with extramedullary disease in the soft tissue was 30 months from initial myeloma diagnosis, compared to 45 months for patients with extramedullary disease adjacent to a bone. Overall survival from time of diagnosis for patients without extramedullary disease was 109 months (more than nine years). The researchers point out that extramedullary disease remains one of the major challenges in the care of multiple myeloma patients. For more information, please see the study in Haematologica (pdf).
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An international panel of multiple myeloma experts, known as the International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG), recently released a consensus statement on risk stratification for patients with multiple myeloma.
Risk stratification refers to the classification of patients into different categories based on likely disease outcome.
The new IMWG risk stratification, for example, has three risk categories: low-risk, standard-risk, and high-risk.
In the new system, determination of a patient's risk classification is based on three factors: a patient's disease stage according to the International Staging System (ISS); the presence of certain chromosomal abnormalities in …
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Researchers recently reported updated survival rates for multiple myeloma patients in the United States. The results show that survival has improved steadily – and markedly – from 1998 to 2009.
The average newly diagnosed myeloma patient 15 years ago, for example, was about one-third as likely as someone without myeloma to live another five years.
By the end of the 2000s, in contrast, that same myeloma patient would be 45 percent as likely as someone without myeloma to live another five years.
Ten-year myeloma survival rates also increased markedly. However, the average …
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Over the last year or two, I have seen an increasing number of patients with multiple myeloma who are deeply worried that they have “failed” treatment because they are not in “complete response” (CR). This phenomenon is gaining further steam with recent interest in “minimal residual disease” (MRD).
In fact, with numerous educational programs, daily emails, and ubiquitous lectures touting a new regimen with even higher complete response rates, I am now almost as worried as them. Of course, the cause of my worry is not that patients have not achieved the …
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German researchers recently developed a new system that calculates the risk level of multiple myeloma patients based on patient’s overall health status and other diseases a patient has in addition to myeloma.
Their system, called the Freiburg Comorbidity Index, calculates a patient’s risk level by determining the presence of known risk factors, such as poor overall health and kidney or lung disease.
The researchers found that this index can be used independently to predict progression-free survival and overall survival in myeloma patients.
More importantly, they found that when the Freiburg Comorbidity Index …
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French researchers recently determined that the chromosomal abnormalities t(4;14) and del(13) are less common in older newly diagnosed myeloma patients than in younger patients.
In contrast, the del(17p) abnormality was found to occur with a similar frequency across myeloma patients of all ages.
The researchers also found that the t(4;14) and del(17p) abnormalities have the same prognostic value in older patients as in younger patients.
Specifically, older patients with t(4;14) and del(17p) had shorter progression-free and overall survival compared to patients without those chromosomal abnormalities.
The del(13) abnormality, on the other hand, …
