The Efficacy and Safety of Chemotherapy-Based Stem Cell Mobilization in Multiple Myeloma Patients Who Are Poor Responders to Induction: The Mayo Clinic Experience

We report the outcomes of 117 patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who received novel agent induction, had a poor response to induction, and were mobilized using intravenous intermediate-dose cyclophosphamide (82%) or VD-PACE (18%) plus granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and on-demand plerixafor. The median progression-free survival and overall survival of the chemo-mobilized cohort were 21 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 15–71) and 58 months (95% CI, 47–80), respectively. We compared our cohort to a 117-patient cohort matched by the level of response at pretransplant evaluation. The matched patients were mobilized with G-CSF and on-demand plerixafor without chemotherapy. Patients receiving chemo-mobilization had higher stem cell yields than the growth-factor-only cohort (median, 10.7 × 10⁶ cells/kg vs. 8.77 × 10⁶ cells/kg, respectively; P <.001). The safety profile of chemo-mobilization was favorable, and there was no difference between the two groups in length of hospitalization during autologous stem cell transplantation (P =.95), days to neutrophil engraftment (P =.22), days to platelet engraftment (P =.27), or risk of bacteremia (P =.52). Twenty-nine percent of the chemo-mobilized cohort and 65% of the matched cohort required plerixafor for adequate mobilization (P <.001). Chemo-mobilization enhances stem cell collection without adversely impacting the post-transplant clinical course.