The Progress of Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in the Treatment of Multiple Myeloma (Review).

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant hematological disease originating from plasma cells that remains incurable. Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is an important treatment method for MM. With the development of new drugs, the treatment of MM patients who meet the ASCT criteria has significantly improved, and the median survival time has increased by 8-10 years. The current treatment for MM patients who meet the ASCT criteria consists mainly of the following stages: induction therapy, stem cell collection, stem cell transplantation, and consolidation and maintenance therapy. Even today, long-term disease control remains the goal of MM treatment in clinical practice. In the era of new drugs, early ASCT still results in longer progression-free survival (PFS) and is currently the standard treatment method for young newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) patients. Moreover, tandem transplantation can be considered for MM patients with high-risk cytogenetics. This review discusses mainly the role of ASCT in MM, the conditions for patient transplantation, the induction chemotherapy regimen before transplantation, the conditioning regimen, the timing of transplantation, and the effectiveness of tandem transplantation, including maintenance and salvage ASCT after transplantation.