ASH 2021 | Assessing post-autoSCT maintenance in patients with myeloma with or without extramedullary disease

Nico Gagelmann, MD, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, comments on a study evaluating the outcomes of maintenance therapy after autologous stem cell transplantation (autoSCT) in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) with or without extramedullary disease (EMD). Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were assessed as primary outcomes. In this study, 830 patients with NDMM with or without EMD received either thalidomide, lenalidomide, bortezomib or daratumumab maintenance. 107 had EMD with organ or paraskeletal involvement. In patients without EMD, the 3-year PFS and 3-year OS were the highest with lenalidomide, followed by thalidomide and bortezomib; whilst in patients with EMD, different maintenance treatments did not appear to affect outcomes significantly. Overall, EMD with organ involvement was correlated with worse early PFS and worse OS despite maintenance treatment. In addition, patients with organ involvement showed a worse early 1-year cumulative incidence of relapse. This interview took place at the 63rd ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition congress in Atlanta, GA.