Early intervention for high-risk and low-risk of progression for patients with smoldering multiple myeloma.

person Nathan W. Sweeney HealthTree Foundation, Lehi, UT info_outline Nathan W. Sweeney, Christian S. Cheung, Thomas H. Molina, Jennifer M. Ahlstrom

Authors person Nathan W. Sweeney HealthTree Foundation, Lehi, UT info_outline Nathan W. Sweeney, Christian S. Cheung, Thomas H. Molina, Jennifer M. Ahlstrom Organizations HealthTree Foundation, Lehi, UT Abstract Disclosures Research Funding No funding received Background: Previous studies have observed smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM) patients with a biomarker criteria of > 20% bone marrow plasma cells, > 2 g/dL M protein spike, and > 20 free light chain ratio, also known as 20/2/20, are at a higher risk of progressing to multiple myeloma (MM) than others. These findings have ignited interest in pursuing early intervention for these high-risk patients. However, we asked if early intervention would be beneficial for all SMM patients regardless of the progression risk level. Methods: We utilized real-world data from HealthTree Cure Hub for Multiple Myeloma to first, determine whether 20/2/20 resulted in a higher risk of progression and second, analyze whether early intervention delayed progression from SMM to MM. A 2-sample t-test was used to compare 20/2/20 to non-20/2/20 patients, as well as in the comparison between SMM patients who received early intervention with treatment to without early intervention. Results: We found that patients who met at least two of the criteria of 20/2/20 had a tendency to progress to MM 35% faster than patients who did not meet the criteria (n = 36, p-value < 0.10). While not significant, it’s still worth noting that there is a difference in the mean time to progression for these patients. Next, we found SMM patients who do not receive early intervention with treatment develop MM two times faster than those who do receive early intervention with treatment, regardless of progression risk level (n = 129, p-value < 0.001). Conclusions: Our results revealed that at least two of the biomarker criteria could aid in the identification of patients with a higher risk of progression. However, a casual approach of “sit and wait” for patients to develop 20/2/20 is not warranted since our findings revealed that all SMM patients benefited from treatment intervention regardless of the progression risk level.