The widespread use of high‐dose therapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) as well as the introduction of novel agents have significantly improved outcomes in multiple myeloma (MM) enabling long‐term survival. We here analyze factors influencing survival in 865 newly diagnosed MM patients who underwent first‐line ASCT at our center between 1993 and 2014. Relative survival and conditional survival were assessed to further characterize long‐term survivors. Achievement of complete response (CR) post‐ASCT was associated with prolonged progression‐free survival (PFS) in the whole cohort and with significantly superior overall survival (OS) in the subgroup of patients receiving novel agent‐based induction therapy. Landmark analyses performed at 1, 3, and 5 years post‐ASCT revealed that sustainment of any response had a highly significant influence on survival with no significant differences between sustained CR and sustained inferior responses. Furthermore, outcome was independently improved by administration of maintenance therapy. A subset of patients did experience long‐term survival >15 years. However, conditional survival demonstrated a persistent risk of myeloma‐associated death and cumulative relative survival curves did not show development of a clear plateau, even in prognostically advantageous groups. In conclusion, in this large retrospective study, sustained response after first‐line ASCT was found to be a major prognostic factor for OS independent of depth of sustained response. Administration of maintenance therapy further improved outcome, supporting the hypothesis that interventions to prolong responses achieved post‐ASCT may be essential to reach long‐term survival, especially in the setting of persisting residual disease.

The study aims on comparing Bayley Scales of infant development third (Bayley-III) and Bayley second (Bayley-II) edition with special focus on patterns in the first year of life. Fifty-five premature infants (43 with low birth weight/LBW >1,499 g and 12 with very/extremely low birth weight/VLBW/ELBW <1,500 g) aged 7 months (corrected for prematurity) were assessed with the complete Bayley-III. From this assessment, Bayley-II results were retrospectively estimated. Bayley-III results were compared to the expected mean with one-sample t-tests. The mean scores of both editions were compared with the aid of paired-sample t-tests. Pearson correlations between subscales and editions were analysed. The Bayley-III cognitive score of the study group was significantly higher than the expected mean of the standardization sample. VLBW/ELBW had significantly lower motor scores than LBW in both editions. When compared to estimated Bayley-II scores, all relevant Bayley-III scores were significantly higher (all p < .01) with highest difference (ten points) between the motor scales of both editions. There were significant correlations not only between Bayley-III cognitive and language scales but also between language and motor scales. Given the strong association between motor and cognitive behaviour in early infancy, this age-specific pattern is heightening the risk of failure to identify infants at risk for both cognitive and motor delay. Therefore, assessment of infants should comprise all subscales. Since Bayley-III probably overestimates especially motor performance in young infants, when interpreting Bayley-III scores in this age, comparison groups are highly recommended until further validation of normative data are outstanding.