Page 320 - Haematologica Vol. 109 - July 2024

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Figure 2. Proportion of patients with improved, stable, or worsened patient-reported outcome measures at cycle 6. An improve- ment or worsening of an outcome was defined as a change of ≥10 points. QoL: quality of life; melflufen: melphalan flufenamide.
tient numbers. Nevertheless, in both groups, more than half of the patients for whom PRO assessments were available were still on study at cycle 6. Although not a statistically powered comparison, 31% of patients receiving melflufen and 13% receiving pomalidomide showed improvement (≥10 points’ change) in global health status/QoL scores at cycle 6, whereas 46% of patients receiving melflufen and 57% receiving pomalidomide showed stable global health status/ QoL scores at cycle 6. These results from later timepoints likely suggest a continuous selection of patients benefiting from therapy and being able to tolerate it.
Pomalidomide plus dexamethasone was the standard- of-care for patients with RRMM when the OCEAN study was initiated, and the combination does not have a neg- ative impact on HRQoL. Despite the higher frequency of hematologic adverse events in the melflufen group than in the pomalidomide group in OCEAN,4 these adverse effects had limited impact on patients’ HRQoL in the melflufen group. A greater proportion of patients were stable or even experienced improvements than those with worsening PRO measures with both treatment reg- imens, suggesting that, in terms of impact on HRQoL, melflufen plus dexamethasone is comparable to po- malidomide plus dexamethasone, despite the different routes of administration (intravenous for melflufen and oral for pomalidomide). These findings aid in meaningful
translation of melflufen plus dexamethasone treatment to real-world practice.
Authors
Fredrik H. Schjesvold,1 Heinz Ludwig,2 Sossana Delimpasi,3 Pawel Robak,4 Daniel Coriu,5 Waldemar Tomczak,6 Ludek Pour,7 Ivan Spicka,8 Meletios-Athanasios Dimopoulos,9 Tamas Masszi,10 Natalia G. Chernova,11 Anna Sandberg,12 Marcus Thuresson,12 Stefan Norin,12 Nicolaas A. Bakker,12 Maria-Victoria Mateos,13 Paul G. Richardson14 and Pieter Sonneveld15
1Oslo Myeloma Center, Department of Hematology, Oslo University Hospital and KG Jebsen Center for B Cell Malignancies, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; 2Department of Medicine I, Center for Medical Oncology and Hematology with Outpatient Department and Palliative Care, Wilhelminen Cancer Research Institute, Vienna, Austria; 3Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit and Department of Hematology, Evangelismos Hospital, Athens, Greece; 4Department of Hemato-Oncology, University Hospital Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic; 5University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, Center of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Fundeni Clinical Institute, Bucharest, Romania; 6Department of Hemato- Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland; 7Department of Internal Medicine,
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