Evaluation of five staging systems in 470 patients with multiple myeloma.

We evaluated the prognostic significance of five staging systems in 470 consecutive, previously untreated patients with multiple myeloma diagnosed between 1989 and 2006. The five staging systems were those proposed by Durie and Salmon, Bataille et al., the South West Oncology Group, Weber et al. and the International Staging System. This last proved to be superior to the others.