Abstract
Even in the era of new drugs, multiple myeloma patients with extramedullary relapse have a poor prognosis. Our goal was to analyze the frequency and outcome of extramedullary relapse occurring in relapsed multiple myeloma patients. In total, we analyzed the prognosis of 226 relapsed multiple myeloma patients treated between 2005 and 2008 and evaluated them for presence of extramedullary relapse. We found evidence of extramedullary relapse in 24% (55 of 226) of relapsed multiple myeloma patients. In 14% (32 of 226) of patients, the lesions were not adjacent to the bone, while extramedullary relapse adjacent to the bone was documented in 10% (23 of 226) of cases. Patients without extramedullary relapse had significantly longer overall survival than patients with extramedullary relapse (109 vs. 38 months; P<0.001). Moreover, patients with soft tissue-related extramedullary relapse had significantly poorer overall survival compared to bone-related extramedullary relapse patients (30 vs. 45 months; P=0.022). Also, overall survival from diagnosis was as low as five months for soft tissue-related extramedullary relapse patients when compared to 12 months overall survival for bone-related extramedullary relapse. This is the first study that shows a significant difference in prognosis for different types of extramedullary relapse. If the extramedullary myeloma infiltration was not bone-related, overall survival after relapse was extremely short (5 months).