Hsieh RW, et al. - In order to characterize patients with multiple myeloma (MM) who experienced prolonged survival, researchers conducted this population-based analysis of long-term survivors examining the roles of sociodemographic factors and upfront stem cell transplantation (SCT). From the National Cancer Data Base, a US cancer database of approximately 34 million patients from >1500 cancer centers, they identified a total of 26,986 patients with MM. The median overall survival (OS) of 2.74 years was reported. Patients, in majority, were male (54%), white (77%), insured (93%) and otherwise healthy (78%), lived in a metropolitan area (82%), were of high income (66%) and educational (58%) levels, and received treatment at nonacademic facilities (63%). Long-term survival was observed for one in 6 patients (16%). Long-term survival (OS of ≥8.22 years) was observed in correlation to young age, female sex, high income and educational levels, residence in a rural area, insured status, no comorbidity, receipt of upfront SCT, and treatment at high-volume facilities. Based on these findings, they suggest improving health care access and health literacy, upfront SCT, and treatment at high-volume facilities for enhancing patient survival.