Abstract

Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Advances in treatment has improved greatly survival of multiple myeloma in
the last two decades, and this improvement has been endorsed by wider use of novel drugs and
tandem autologous stem cell transplantation. However, still there were cases died earlier post
diagnosis
OBJECTIVES: To study the risk factors of early mortality in patients with multiple myeloma In
Kurdistan region of Iraq
PATIENTS AND METHODS: A 176 cases that were diagnosed with symptomatic multiple
myeloma between (January 2012 – July 2019) in cancer centers in Kurdistan region of Iraq. A
total of 152 were continued within the study through their recorded sheet. Their data were
analysed to determine what are the main risk factors that have an impact on early mortality
among our myeloma patients.
RESULTS: Among the total of 152 studied patients nine of them (5.9%) died early. The highest
proportion (32.2%) of the sample aged 60-69 years, more than half (57.2%) of the them were
male. The majority of the patients (80.9%) have been diagnosed during 2016-2019. The
incidence of early death was 8.7% among patients who didn’t take the cytotoxic treatment
compared with 1.7% of patients who took that treatment, but the difference was not significant (p
= 0.089). The early death rate was significantly high (22.2%) among patients who didn’t take the
immunomodulatory drugs, versus 2.4% of patients who took the immunomodulatory drugs (p =
0.001). The incidence of early mortality was 9.6% among patients with lactate dehydrogenase of
≥ 250 U/L compared with 0%