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For patients with immunoglobulin D multiple myeloma (IgD MM), those with renal impairment (RI) have poorer prognosis and shorter median survival than those with no renal impairment (no-RI), according to a study published online Nov. 23 in Frontiers in Oncology.
Ge Yan, from The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in China, and colleagues examined the risk factors of renal damage and prognosis in a study involving 85 patients with IgD MM. Patients were categorized into RI or no-RI groups (47 and 38 patients, respectively).
The researchers found that 55.3 percent of patients with IgD MM had renal damage as a complication, of which 59.6 percent presented with acute renal failure as the first manifestation. In IgD MM, serum β2-microglobulin was an independent risk factor for renal damage; however, a cytogenetic analysis suggested it had no effect on renal damage.
No significant difference was seen in the effect of chemotherapy between the groups. In addition, no significant difference was seen in the proportion of patients with improved renal function after treatment for patients with acute renal failure in dialysis and no-dialysis groups. The median overall survival was significantly shorter in the RI versus the no-RI group (29 and >40 months, respectively).
“Patients with renal failure as the first manifestation should be screened as soon as possible to see whether it is related to MM,” the authors write. “Additionally, for these patients, treatment of primary disease is more meaningful than dialysis.”
Elana Gotkine