ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Hematologic Malignancies
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1628121
A Discrete Choice Experiment analysis to understand Patient Preferences for Multiple Myeloma Treatments
Provisionally accepted
Beth Faiman1*
Hoa Le2
Julie Laurent3Saurabh Patel2Agne Paner-Straseviciute2Xinke Zhang2Joseph Mikhael4- 1Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, United States
- 2Johnson & Johnson, Spring House, United States
- 3Carenity, Paris, France
- 4Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, AZ, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant plasma cell disorder characterized by the clonal expansion of abnormal plasma cells within the bone marrow. The management of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) represents a significant challenge as the disease relapses or becomes refractory to previous treatments. Recent advances in therapy have expanded RRMM treatment options. This study aimed to gain a deeper understanding of patients' treatment preferences regarding available therapeutic options.Methods: This study was designed as a non-interventional descriptive cross-sectional study based on an online discrete choice experiment (DCE) among adult RRMM patients living in the between USA November 2023 and March 2024. The survey included attributes and levels derived from an extensive literature review and guided interviews conducted with MM patients. Preference data were analyzed using a conditional logistic (CL) regression model and relative attribute importance (RAI) scores were calculated. Patients' willingness to trade off overall response rate (ORR) was evaluated using the partworth utilities estimated from the CL model.Results: 149 MM patients completed the survey; 66% had received 1-2 prior lines of therapy, 15% three prior lines, 19% four or more prior lines. Patients significantly preferred treatments with longer progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) and higher ORR (RAI: 36.4% and 22.1%, respectively). With respect to adverse events assessed in this study, patients expressed concern for cytokine release syndrome (CRS) (RAI: 15.2%) and infections (RAI: 11.9%). In contrast, nail/skin disorders, duration of hospitalization, and taste disorder were less important to patients. Patients would be willing to accept a high risk of CRS (72% over no risk) to gain 29% increase in ORR.Conclusions: Patients showed a clear preference for treatment efficacy (PFS/OS and ORR). This study confirmed patients' valuation on treatment attributes in the new treatment landscape and highlighted the importance of shared treatment decision-making for optimal clinical outcomes.
Keywords: Discrete choice experiment, Multiple Myeloma, patient preferences, trade-offs, Treatment attributes
Received: 13 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Faiman, Le, Laurent, Patel, Paner-Straseviciute, Zhang and Mikhael. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Beth Faiman, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.