Doubling in median survival in patients diagnosed with multiple myeloma 2005-2019; a real-world study from the UK’s Haematological Malignancy Research Network

Recent decades have seen an explosion of therapeutic agents being evaluated in multiple myeloma (MM) clinical trials, and many of these have subsequently been licensed. Sadly, however, despite such advances, MM remains incurable. In addition, the restrictive inclusion and exclusion criteria of many clinical studies often mean that the beneficial effects seen within trials are not uniformly translated across the general patient population once agents are approved for use in routine clinical practice.1-3 Hence, understanding patterns of myeloma diagnosis and treatment in unselected real-world populations, and monitoring how they change over time in light of emerging therapeutic options, are key to informing clinical service strategy and clinical decision-making.