Relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma patients burdened with poor survival, high costs

Patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) are at greater risk of adverse events (AEs), have low overall survival (OS), and suffer a substantial economic burden, reports a study, which suggests the need for effective treatment options.

The study sought to assess clinical outcomes among RRMM patients 1 year after treatment with pomalidomide or daratumumab, as well as compare economic outcomes between RRMM and non-MM patients.

The authors identified adult patients with at least one claim of pomalidomide or daratumumab between January 2012 and February 2018 using the IQVIA PharMetrics Plus US claims database. Patients either had a diagnosis of or treatment for MM and a claim of any immunomodulatory drugs and proteasome inhibitors prior to the index date.

The authors reported mean time to new therapy, OS using Kaplan-Meier curve, and AEs over the 1-year postindex period. They also matched 289 RRMM patients to 1,445 non-MM comparators and compared economic outcomes between the two cohorts.

Anaemia (72.0 percent) and infections (75.4 percent) were the most prevalent haematological and nonhaematological AEs, respectively. Mean time to a new treatment was 4.7 months, while the median OS was 14.6 months. Hospitalizations and physician office visits were significantly higher among RRMM patients than non-MM comparators (p<0.0001 for both).

After adjusting for baseline characteristics, those with RRMM were found to have 4.9 times (95 percent confidence interval, 3.8−6.4; p<0.0001) greater total healthcare costs than did patients without MM. Pharmacy expenses (67.3 percent) accounted for most of the total costs among RRMM patients.