New publication in Leukemia

In our latest publication, we investigated infection risk in individuals with smouldering multiple myeloma (SMM) using data from the iStopMM study in Iceland. SMM is an asymptomatic precursor condition to multiple myeloma, affecting approximately 0.5% of people over 40 years old. This study includes 188 individuals with SMM from a screened population-based cohort, providing first insights into infection risk in this patient group. We found that individuals with SMM had significantly increased infection risk compared to both those without precursor conditions and those with MGUS.

One aspect we found particularly important in this project was the ability to evaluate infection risk in asymptomatic SMM within a screened, population-based cohort. Because SMM was identified independently of clinical presentation, the study avoids many of the selection and referral biases that typically affect clinically detected samples. This provided a rare opportunity to estimate infection risk at a truly early stage and to separate disease-related vulnerability from healthcare-seeking patterns.

The main takeaway is that individuals with SMM have a higher infection risk than both MGUS patients and those without precursor conditions, including those classified as low-risk SMM. This shows that infection susceptibility arises earlier in the disease course than is often assumed, and highlights the need to recognise immune impairment already at the SMM stage.