Poster Presentation NSW State Cancer Conference 2023

Multiple Myeloma in the culturally and linguistically diverse Southwestern Sydney (#175)

A-M Joelle Marivel 1 2 3 4 5 , Tara L Roberts 2 3 5 , win Pa Aung 1 , Adam J Bryant 1 2 , Alexander James 3 5 , Yafeng Ma 2 3 4 5 , Joseph Descallar 3 5 , Therese M Becker 3 4 5 , silvia Ling 1 2 3 5
  1. NSW Health Pathology, Liverpool, NSW, Australia
  2. Western Sydney University, Liverpool
  3. UNSW, Liverpool
  4. Centre for Circulating Tumour Cell Diagnostics & Research (CCDR) , Liverpool
  5. Ingham Institute, Liverpool

Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable haematological cancer with a median overall survival of 5-10 years. American studies have reported significant disparities in the incidence and clinical outcomes in MM patients linked to race or ethnicity. 

This study sought to characterise the racial/ethnic representation in MM patients who presented to public hospitals in Southwestern Sydney between 2009 and 2020. This retrospective study describes the associations between race/ethnicity and age at diagnosis, cytogenetics, comorbidities, and survival outcomes.

Patient data was extracted from Mosaiq (oncology management system) and PathNet® (laboratory information system). Since neither race nor ethnicity are recorded in the NSW Healthcare system, race was defined based on the country of birth and ethnicity and identification of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD), based on country of birth and language as well as use of an interpreter.

Seven regions across 65 countries of birth were identified in our cohort of 522 patients, with 26% of patients speaking a language other than English. Survival outcomes were similar regardless of race or CALD classification. Correlation analysis of cytogenetics and comorbidities with survival is underway.

This is the first MM report addressing the role of ethnicity in NSW. Our findings imply there is no impact of CALD status on MM survival. However, classifying patient ethnicity, solely based on country of birth and language may be misleading as was shown in the UK with the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) classification.