Characteristics and Outcomes of Adolescent, Young Adults, and Adults 40-50 Years Old with Multiple Myeloma: A Single Center Experience

Background

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant tumor with abnormal proliferation of plasma cells. Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) patients are defined as patients between 15-39 years of age. Multiple myeloma is uncommon in non-elderly populations. Its prevalence is only 2% in AYA age group and only 10% in patients 40-50 years old.

The feature of MM is not well known or understood in those two age groups.

In this retrospective study we describe the clinical characteristics, cytogenetics, prognostic markers, treatments given and outcomes of MM in AYA and 40-50 years old patients.

Methods

We retrospectively analyzed data from the clinical database of our single tertiary hematology center, The National Center for Cancer Care and Research, Doha, Qatar. This center serves a country's population of about 2,8 million people. All patients diagnosed with MM between the age 50 or less during the period of January 2007 to December 2022 were included.

Results

Seventy-four patients were diagnosed at our centre with MM before the age of 50 years, total of all MM cases 222 (33%) Males was predominant 55/74 (74.3 %) with a median age of 41 years (range, 15-49). Most of the patients were from Asian 55%. At diagnosis patients had a median hemoglobin of 10.2 g/dl, creatinine 294 umol/L, total protein 90 gm/L, albumin 34.75 gm/L, calcium 2.7 mmol/L, LDH 255 U/L, IgG 2289.75 mg/dl, IgA 424.15 mg/dl, IgM 34.2 mg/dl, FLC-Kappa 1993 mg/L and FLC-Lambda 1177 mg/L. Median of bone marrow filtration by plasma cell was 51 %. Most of the patients presented at advance stages with 44 patient (59%) presented as IIIA Durie Salmon or stage III and IV by ISS 70 %. IgG Kappa most frequent type of MM 18 patients (24%), followed by Free light chain kappa (23%), IgG Lambda (18%) and others including two cases of plasmacytoma (Most recurrent cytogenetics were diploid cytogenetics in 42 patients (57%), while 7 patients (9%) had complex cytogenetics. Twenty-eight patients had spinal cord compression at single or multiple levels ( thoracic were most common site 20%) while 3 patients had pathological fractures. Bortezomib based regimen is most one used to treat our patients. Daratumumab- Velcade, Revlimid, and dexamethasone (D-VRD) was used for 35 patients (74%) and Velcade,Cyclophosphamide and Dexamethasone VCD in 20 patients (27%). The first response to treatment showed completed remission (CR) in 35 patients, very good partial remission in 10 patients, partial response in 9 patients, four patients either refractory or primary refractory disease and one patient with stable disease. Thirty -five patients (48%) underwent their first autologous bone marrow transplant ASCT. A total of 8 patients underwent second ASCT and one patient underwent third ASCT. After a median duration of follow up of 6.25 years and 72 % of the patients were still alive. We compared the characteristics and outcome for the AYA group (18-39) with patient age group 40 to 49 years. Although there was no statistical significance difference between the two groups regarding overall survival (p=0.21) , the older group had more cases of spinal cord compressions and more cases of refractory disease. Patient characteristics are described in Table 1.

Conclusion

One third of MM patients in our center are younger than 50 years. These patients tend to present with advanced stage and serious manifestation such as spinal cord compression. IgG kappa and free light chain are the most common myeloma type in this cohort. D-VRD is the most used protocol with a good response rate. Patient characteristics and treatment outcomes are the same for AYA patients compared with patients 40-49 years old (p=0.21). Patients who received first transplant had better OS compare the those who didn't (p0.01)