Survival Outcomes of Multiple Myeloma Patients Admitted on Assiut Clinical Hematology Unit

What are survival outcomes and the prognostic value of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio of multiple myeloma patients admitted on Assiut clinical Hematology unit? Multiple myeloma (MM)is a plasma cell neoplasm associated with its characteristic clinical complications: anemia, infections, renal impairment or bone destruction. MM is the second most commonly diagnosed hematological neoplasm, with an incidence rate of 6.2 per 100 000 individuals .

Survival outcomes have remained constant over the past few decades; therefore, MM is still considered incurable. However, the increasing use of autologous stem cell transplantation (SCT) and the introduction of novel therapeutic agents, such as thalidomide and bortezomib, have improved the survival of myeloma patients .

Relationship between inflammation and cancer have been established. Some inflammatory factors from accessory cells in tumor milieu, such as interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), facilitated cancer cells' invasiveness .

Further studies exhibited the reactive oxygen and nitrogen from inflammatory cells induced mutation of some tumor suppressor genes, and inflammatory factors such as IL-6 and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) caused DNA methylation, which both played an important role in tumorigenesis. Accordingly, neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) coinciding with rationales supported by numerous studies, could offer a precise potency in predicting prognosis of cancers. In fact, many studies already demonstrated the prognostic significance of NLR in various cancers Consistently, a number of meta-analyses further confirmed this view in colorectal cancer, lung cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and lymphoma and others.