Impact of failed response to novel agent induction in autologous stem cell transplantation for multiple myeloma

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the response to induction therapy on the long-term prognosis of multiple myeloma (MM) after autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in the era of novel agents (NAs). A total of 171 patients who were newly diagnosed with MM and underwent early ASCT were analyzed. One hundred ten had a NA-based induction therapy, and 61 patients had a non-NA-based induction therapy. After a median follow-up of 45.4 months, the 4-year overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) from transplantation were 60.5 and 25.5 %, respectively, for the NA-based induction group and 54.6 and 15.6 %, respectively, for the non-NA-based induction group. Multivariate analyses revealed that the patients who had NA-based induction had a significantly shorter OS (P < 0.001) and PFS (P < 0.001) when at least a partial response (PR) was not achieved. In patients who did not receive NAs before ASCT, lack of at least a PR to induction therapy was not associated with a survival disadvantage. These findings suggest that, unlike pretransplantation induction before NAs, patients who do not respond to induction treatment using NAs may not derive a benefit from ASCT. The relevance of induction failure differs for corticosteroid- and NA-based induction.