Statins use and peripheral blood progenitor cells mobilization in patients with multiple myeloma.

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e17007 Background: Statin drugs have beneficial effects in patients after myocardial infarction and at least part of the benefit is believed to result from mobilization of marrow endothelial progenitors to repopulate damage myocardial tissues. This study examines if statins may have the same effect in mobilizing marrow progenitors to be harvested and subsequently used in high dose chemotherapy with progenitor cell rescue in patients with multiple myeloma. Methods: From 2006 to 2009, 22 consecutive patients with multiple myeloma were mobilized with the use of G-CSF and were retrospectively analyzed. Patients with other malignancies or mobilized with the use of chemotherapy or with plerixafor were excluded from this analysis. Results: The median age of the patients was 60 years-old. Fifteen patients had received one line of chemotherapy, six patients two lines and one patient three lines of chemotherapy. Thirteen patients were taking statins at the time of the harvest while nine patients were not. In the group of patients taking statins in only two of 13 (15%) the target number of 4x106 CD34+ cells /kg could not be obtained with a single apheresis session while in the group not taking statins four of nine patients (44.5%) required more than one session to obtain this target (including one patient in whom the target number could not be obtained even with the additional sessions). Nevertheless due to the low number of patients in the study this difference did not attain statistical significance (x2=0.13). The median number of cells harvested was 8x106 CD34+ cells /kg in the group taking statins and 6.3x106 CD34+ cells /kg in the control group. Conclusions: This retrospective analysis of 22 patients discloses a numerically important difference in the success of peripheral blood progenitors harvest in patients taking statins which did not attain statistical significance. Larger studies would be required to clarify the issue. If their effectiveness is confirmed statins could be a safe and cheaper addition to chemotherapy and plerixafor for peripheral hematopoietic stem cell mobilization.