Invasive Fungal Diseases in Patients With Multiple Myeloma: Experience at a Large, Urban Referral Center

Although infections are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among patients with multiple myeloma (MM), the epidemiology of invasive fungal disease (IFD) is less well characterized in this population than in other hematologic malignancies.

We conducted a nested 3:1 case-control study of IFD at a large MM referral center to identify risk factors for IFD in this population.

In a cohort of 2960 patients, we identified 32 episodes of IFD among 31 patients between 01/2011 and 06/2019. There was a median of 3.6 years from MM diagnosis to IFD, and patients had a median of four lines of chemotherapy (range 1-12) before IFD. Seventeen (53%) had previous autologous hematopoietic cell transplants. At the time of IFD, 23 (72%) had progressive disease status. Fifteen (47%) and 13 (41%) had severe neutropenia and lymphopenia, respectively, and 18 (56%) had hypogammaglobulinemia. Microbiologic etiologies included Aspergillus (n = 18), Candida (n = 6), Cryptococcus (n = 3), Mucorales (n = 3), Histoplasma (n = 1), and undetermined organism (n = 1). In the case-control analysis, progressive disease status (OR 1.35, p = 0.02) and neutropenia (OR 17.5, p = 0.02) were significant risk factors for IFD. In addition, ≥3 prior lines of chemotherapy trended toward statistical significance (OR 5.6, p = 0.07).

This is the largest detailed description of IFD epidemiology in MM patients and the largest controlled analysis of risk factors in this population. Overall, the risk of IFD was low.