Dr Michael Thompson speaks to ecancer in an online interview for the virtual EHA 2020 meeting about the impact on healthcare resource utilisation and overall survival from the INSIGHT MM study into the global rates of influenza and pneumococcal vaccination in multiple myeloma patients.

He explains that myeloma causes an immune dysfunction which makes patients more susceptible to vaccine preventable infections such as influenza and pneumonia.

Dr Thompson reports that the study, which followed up 4318 multiple myeloma patients from 15 countries worldwide prospectively, concluded that global influenza and pneumococcal vaccination rates in myeloma patients were low and that vaccination status was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival.