Cancer
Nutritional supplements and survival outcomes in patients with multiple myeloma Jiarui Yang* Jiarui Yang Bei Wang Benjamin Derman Jade Mason Andrzej Jakubowiak Brian C. Chiu
Nutritional supplements and mortality or survival have been investigated in several solid tumors. However, there remains a comparative paucity of data in multiple myeloma (MM). In a cohort of 429 patients with MM, we examined whether the pre-diagnostic nutritional supplement use was associated with overall-survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Nutritional supplement use was collected using a questionnaire at enrollment. After excluding supplements used by less than 5% of participants, 11 supplements were included in the current report. Patients self-reported never used any of these supplements were defined as “never users” and served as the referent group. Important prognostic variables were collected from electronic medical records. Proportional hazard models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for OS and PFS. A total of 148 deaths occurred in the patient cohort over a median follow-up period of 51.4 months. Compared with never users of any nutritional supplement before diagnosis, users of chondroitin had a worse OS (HR ever vs. never = 2.1 [1.0-4.5]) after controlling for prognostic factors. In addition, ever used B vitamins (HR ever vs. never = 1.7 [1.0-2.8]) and vitamin C (HR ever vs. never = 1.6 [1.0-2.6]) was associated with worse PFS. No association with OS or PFS was detected for all other nutritional supplements evaluated. In conclusion, our data suggest that the use of most nutritional supplements prior to diagnosis is not associated with OS and PFS in patients with MM. Our findings on chondroitin, B vitamins, and vitamin C are novel and require confirmation.