Successful Treatment of Relapsed/Refractory Extramedullary Multiple Myeloma With Anti-BCMA CAR-T Cell Therapy Followed by Haploidentical Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Case Report and a Review of the Contemporary Literature

Extramedullary multiple myeloma (EMM) is an aggressive sub-entity of multiple myeloma (MM). Despite an excellent improvement in survival for most patients with MM over recent decades, the overall survival (OS) of patients with EMM was usually not longer than 3 years. Standard treatment for patients with EMM has not been established, and their management is particularly challenging. We presented a heavily pretreated young patient with relapsed EMM and refractoriness to a proteasome inhibitor (PI; bortezomib), a next-generation PI (ixazomib), immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs; lenalidomide), autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (ASCT), and monoclonal antibody (directed against CD38: daratumumab) and indicated that myeloablative haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (haploidentical-HSCT) as a salvage treatment of relapse after a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy that targeted B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) (NCT04650724) is feasible. Taken together of the contemporary literature, the promising results on the effect of anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapy and allogeneic HSCT might present a proof-of-principle for patients with EMM, and therefore, patients with the disease need to be included in future studies.

Automated summary

Extramedullary multiple myeloma (EMM) is a subtype with poor prognosis, lacking established standard treatments. A case study of a relapsed EMM patient who underwent myeloablative haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation after CAR-T cell therapy suggests a potential salvage treatment strategy for such cases.