Case Control Study
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World J Clin Cases. Nov 16, 2022; 10(32): 11712-11725
Published online Nov 16, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i32.11712
Comparing the efficacy of different dexamethasone regimens for maintenance treatment of multiple myeloma in standard-risk patients non-eligible for transplantation
Sai-Ling Hu, Min Liu, Jun-Yu Zhang
Sai-Ling Hu, Department of Cardiology, Lishui Central Hospital, Lishui 323000, Zhejiang Province, China
Min Liu, Jun-Yu Zhang, Department of Hematology, Lishui Municipal Central Hospital, Lishui 323000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang JY designed the report and wrote the paper; Hu SL collected the patient’s clinical data and revised the paper; Liu M analyzed the data; all authors have read and approved the final version of this manuscript.
Supported by the Medical Health Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang Province Health Commission, No. 2020ZH013.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Medical Research and Ethics Committee of the Lishui Municipal Central Hospital.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from each patient or family member.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to report.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jun-Yu Zhang, MM, Chief Doctor, Department of Hematology, Lishui Municipal Central Hospital, No. 289 KuoCang Road, Lishui 323000, Zhejiang Province, China. zhangjunyu815@163.com
Received: June 20, 2022
Peer-review started: June 20, 2022
First decision: September 5, 2022
Revised: September 13, 2022
Accepted: October 18, 2022
Article in press: October 18, 2022
Published online: November 16, 2022
Processing time: 140 Days and 23.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Multiple myeloma (MM) is a plasma cell malignancy. MM treatment includes induction therapy, consolidation therapy, and maintenance therapy. Based on the past clinical activities, we discovered that a part of patients suffered from serious adverse gastrointestinal reactions after oral administration of 40 mg dexamethasone (DXM) once every week. Consequently, we divided DXM 40 mg administered once a day into 20 mg continuously administered over two days, after which we compared the efficacy and toxicity in DXM 40 mg and 20 mg group as maintenance. The two groups have equally efficience as maintenance treatment in standard-risk patients’ non-eligible for transplantation. However, DXM 40 mg once per day per week exhibited a higher incidence rate in adverse gastrointestinal reactions in short-term, but lower non-hematological toxicity in the long-term contained bone lost, abnormal of blood glucose and insomnia. DXM 40 mg once per day every week may be safer and lead to a better quality of life.