Bortezomib significantly improved response rates in the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma (MM). However, the process of selecting an optimal bortezomib based regimen as the initial therapy of MM remains ambiguous due to a lack of modern clinical trials demonstrating the efficacy of various bortezomib based treatments. Here, we report four bortezomib-based regimens for treatment of MM patients from three hematological treatment centers in China.

Methods

Newly diagnosed MM patients in three hematological centers in China between February 1, 2006 and May 31, 2013 were treated with combination therapies including bortezomib plus dexamethasone (PD), or triple combinations of PD with adriamycin (PAD), cyclophosphamide (PCD), and thalidomide (PTD) every 28 days.

Results

The overall response rate (≥ partial response, ORR) of all the 215 eligible patients was 90.2%. The ORR for PCD, PAD, PTD and PD were 97.4%, 93.2%, 85.3% and 77.8% respectively, while the effects with VGPR or better were 63.7%, 62.7%, 44.2% and 37.8% respectively. The effect of ORR, VGPR and CR/nCR for PCD regimen was significantly better than PD scheme (P = 0.009, 0.011, 0.005 ). The median PFS of all the patients was 29.0 months with significant differences observed between groups (P =0.047). The median OS of all the patients was not reached, but triple combinations of PD with adriamycin (PAD), cyclophosphamide (PCD), and thalidomide (PTD) were more efficient in treatment of MM patients compared to PD (P =0.005). The frequently observed toxicities were neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, fatigue, infection, herpes zoster, and peripheral neuropathy. Incidence of peripheral neuropathy (PN) in PTD group was significantly higher than other three groups, especially grade 2-3 PN. Treatment with anti-viral agent acyclovir significantly reduced the incidence of herpes zoster.

Conclusions

Our study demonstrated that bortezomib-based regimens were active and well-tolerated in the Chinese MM patients, and triple combinations of PD with adriamycin (PAD), cyclophosphamide (PCD), and thalidomide (PTD) were more efficient for treatment of MM patient, and the patients received PCD or PAD demonstrated significant higher ORR compared to PD.

Disclosures:

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Topics:
bortezomib, multiple myeloma, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, thalidomide, herpes zoster disease, peripheral neuropathy, acyclovir, dexamethasone, fatigue

Author notes

*

Asterisk with author names denotes non-ASH members.

© 2013 by The American Society of Hematology
2013
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