Impact Of Dialysis-Dependent Renal Failure At Time Of Myeloma Diagnosis On Overall Survival - a 15-Year Single Centre Analysis

In myeloma, the use of autologous stem cell transplantation in younger patients as well as the introduction of thalidomide, lenalidomide and bortezomib has resulted in improvement in long-term survival of both younger and older patients. Bortezomid and high dose dexamethasone is currently recommended to treat newly diagnosed myeloma patients presenting with renal impairment and may lead to varying degrees of improvement in renal function. We have assessed not only survival trends for all patients diagnosed at our centre over the past 18 years but also the survival of the subset of patients with severe renal impairment who required dialysis at diagnosis.

All patients diagnosed with myeloma at our centre between January 1995 and December 2012 were included. We constructed Kaplan-Meier curves and used the Breslow generalised Wilcoxon test to evaluate overall survival (OS) patterns (diagnosed in three calendar periods: 1995-2000; 2001-2006; 2007-2012) for our total patient population as well as the subset of patients who required dialysis within 4 weeks of diagnostic bone marrow test.

262 patients (60.3% males) were diagnosed between 1995 and 2012. For all patients, median OS significantly increased from 13.2 months in period 1995-2000 to 27 months in period 2001-2006 with median OS not yet reached in period 2007-2012 (p=0.0001). In patients 70 years old or less, median OS significantly increased from 25.4 months in period 1995-2000 to 46.7 months in period 2001-2006 with median OS not yet reached in period 2007-2012 (p=0.0482). Improved median OS was also seen in patients > 70 years old: 4.4 months in period 1995-2000, 17.4 months in period 2001-2006 and 25.1 months in period 2007-2012 (p<0.0001). In contrast, patients requiring dialysis at diagnosis (n = 44) had much worse outcomes: median OS in the period 1995-2000 was 2.8 months and although there was a slight improvement in median OS in the period 2001-2006 (p=0.0318), there has been no further improvement in median OS in the period 2007-2012.

In our overall myeloma patient population, median OS has continued to increase over the time periods 1995-2000, 2001-2006 and 2007-2012, both for younger patients 70 years old or less and older patients >70 years old. Patients requiring dialysis at diagnosis, however, continue to have much poorer median OS, despite the use of bortezomib and dexamethasone containing regimens in recent years. The possible benefit of improved supportive measures and the early use of other emerging novel agents in this poor prognostic subgroup should be explored in the clinical trial setting.