Transplantation for Myeloma — Now or Later?

The outlook for patients with multiple myeloma has improved dramatically during the past two decades. The median overall survival is now more than 6 years, as compared with an overall survival of 3 to 4 years during the era of treatment with alkylating agents and anthracyclines.1 This progress resulted from the introduction of new classes of agents (immunomodulatory drugs, proteasome inhibitors, and more recently, monoclonal antibodies) and the intensification of therapy with autologous stem-cell transplantation, as well as incremental improvements that are attributable to refinements of drugs within these same therapeutic classes.Following the pioneering efforts of Dr. Bart Barlogie, . . .