Our summary
Antibodies that target CD38 have transformed the treatment landscape for patients with multiple myeloma (MM). The translocation t(11;14) is present in ~15% of patients newly diagnosed with MM and, despite still being classified as standard risk MM, is associated with a unique clinical and pathological phenotype. Prior work using large datasets has demonstrated that the prognosis for patients t(11;14) may be slightly worse than standard risk disease when patients are treated with novel agents.
In this study, researchers used clinical and cytogenetic data from a large group of real-world patients with MM to compare outcomes of patients receiving anti-CD38 therapy with and without t(11;14).
Why this matters
Patients with t(11;14) represent a small fraction of patients with MM enrolled in randomized trials. Therefore there is little data on the impact of t(11;14) on the prognosis of other patient cohorts receiving anti-CD38 therapies.
As a result, clinical trials may not adequately evaluate the impact of novel therapies on rare cytogenetic subsets, and the use of real-world data presents a significant opportunity to answer this.