Modern treatment options for elderly patients with multiple myeloma

Abstract

Multiple myeloma, an incurable malignancy of plasma cells, is a disease of the elderly. In younger patients, significant therapeutic progress has been achieved, but survival outcomes remain unacceptably low in older adults with multiple myeloma. Diverse factors, including comorbidity, performance status, decreased physiologic reserve, and potential undertreatment, contribute to these poor outcomes. Unfortunately, many clinical trials are designed to exclude elderly patients with coexisting diseases, so only limited data are available and no guidelines exist on how to treat this challenging and growing myeloma population. A broader range of therapeutic options has become available within the last few years, including chemotherapy with either established or newly available drugs, immunomodulators, and high-dose treatment with stem cell support (autologous as well as allogeneic). In this review, we discuss the data available from clinical trials investigating antineoplastic treatment of elderly multiple myeloma patients.