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MULTIPLE MYELOMA, GAMMOPATHIES

Real world analysis on the determinants of survival in primary plasma cell leukemia in the United States

Leukemia volume 38, pages 435–437 (2024)Cite this article

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Plasma cell leukemia (PCL) is an aggressive form of multiple myeloma (MM), characterized by circulating malignant plasma cells in the blood. It’s either primary or evolves from MM. In this article, PCL refers to primary plasma cell leukemia. Distinguishing PCL from MM is essential for treatment and prognosis [1].

Originally, PCL diagnosis needed 20% circulating plasma cells [1, 2]. The International Myeloma Working Group now defines PCL with 5% circulating plasma cells in symptomatic MM patients, identifying more cases [3]. PCL accounts for ~0.6% of new MM cases globally [4,5,6]. Its severity necessitates prompt multiagent therapy and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) where possible. Without standardized protocols, high-risk MM strategies are common [2]. In current practice trend, for those who are not candidates for HSCT, several courses of multi-agent therapy containing novel agents are often used and continued until progression of disease.

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Fig. 1: Kaplan-Meier Analysis for Patient Survival.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our patients and the Maroone Cancer Center Hematologic Malignancy Research Fund for their support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematology and Oncology, Myeloma and Amyloidosis Program, Maroone Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic Florida, Weston, FL, USA

    Ludovic Saba, Kevin S. Landau, Chieh-Lin Fu & Chakra P. Chaulagain

  2. Department of Clinical Research, Cleveland Clinic Florida, Weston, FL, USA

    Hong Liang

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  1. Ludovic Saba
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  2. Kevin S. Landau
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  4. Chieh-Lin Fu
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  5. Chakra P. Chaulagain
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Contributions

LS led the project, taking primary responsibility for the writing process. KSL was instrumental in conceptualization. HL conducted statistical analysis. CLF contributed to the revisions. CPC is the principal investigator who initiated the idea and provided substantial inputs from the beginning to the end of the project.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chakra P. Chaulagain.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests. The NCDB, a collaboration between the CoC of the American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society, provides the de-identified data used here. The CoC’s NCDB and its participating hospitals haven’t verified the data’s statistical validity or the authors’ conclusions.

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Saba, L., Landau, K.S., Liang, H. et al. Real world analysis on the determinants of survival in primary plasma cell leukemia in the United States. Leukemia 38, 435–437 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-023-02100-x

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