Assessment of Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation in Medicare Beneficiaries With Multiple Myeloma

Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most common hematologic malignancy in adults. The current standard of care for MM patients fit to undergo high dose conditioning chemotherapy is an autologous HCT (autoHCT). Allogeneic HCT (alloHCT) is the only potentially curative therapy available to patients with MM. However, the significant morbidity and mortality of this procedure historically limited its application in older patients.

Thus, although potentially curative, standard risk MM patients have excellent prognoses in the era of novel therapies which reduces the overall benefit of alloHCT. However, because the outcomes for high-risk MM remain poor despite the best available standard therapies (overall survival of 24-36 months), initial data suggest that alloHCT should be explored in this subset.