Diagnostic Pathways Of Myeloma Patients Presenting To Hospital Care And Relationship To End Organ Damage: An Analysis From The Teamm (Tackling Early Morbidity And Mortality In Myeloma) Trial In 977 Patients

Introduction and methods: Myeloma is a cancer with one of the longest pathways to diagnosis. This may be due to the non-specific nature of presenting symptoms and its' relative rarity. Early diagnosis initiatives have focused on the role of the primary physician. Despite concern that patients referred to non-haematology specialists may experience long diagnostic intervals, data remain sparse on pathways within hospital care. The TEAMM trial is a double-blind, placebo controlled multicentre UK trial of supportive care, investigating levofloxacin prophylaxis for 12 weeks from diagnosis to reduce infection, versus the risk of healthcare associated infection. Data were collected from patients within 14 days of starting anti-myeloma treatment, including symptoms attributable to myeloma, visits to their primary physician, first hospital department visited for these symptoms, and first visit to a haematologist, with corresponding dates. The relationship between diagnostic time intervals and the number of CRAB (hyperCalcaemia, Renal disease, Anaemia, Bone disease) features and ISS (International Staging System) were analysed by pathway into hospital care using the chi-square test for categorical variables or Wilcoxon/Kruskal-Wallis test for continuous variables as appropriate.