Abstract:
Objective To investigate the clinical efficiency and effect of radiotherapy on newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM) with extramedullary disease.
Methods The clinical features and prognostic factors were retrospectively analyzed in 52 patients hospitalized from January 2000 to August 2012 in Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital. We analyzed the efficiency of radiotherapy and its effect on the prognosis of MM patients with extramedullary disease.
Results The median age among the 52 patients was 60 years, 69.2% extramedullary multiple myeloma (EM) was found in soft tissues. Among all the EM patients, 13 accepted radiotherapy with a median radiotherapy dose of 45 Gy. The estimated overall survival (OS) of patients with EM was 42.5 months. Radiotherapy did not show statistically significant influence both on disease response rate and overall survival (P > 0.05). Log-rank univariate analysis showed that Hb≤110 g/L (P=0.009) and β2-MG≥5.5 (P=0.049) were poor prognostic factors of MM. Multivariate analysis with COX model showed that β2-MG was statistically significant (P=0.014).
Conclusion Radiotherapy does not improve the prognosis of patients with EM. Furthermore, patients with EM may need combination therapy, which includes administration of Bortezomib or autologous hemopoietic stem cell transplantation.