Patterns of survival and causes of death following a diagnosis of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance: a population-based study

Background There are limited data on survival patterns among patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance.Design and Methods We compared the survival of 4,259 patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, collected from hematology outpatient units in Sweden, with the survival of the general population by computing relative survival ratios. We also compared causes of death in these patients with those in 16,151 matched controls.Results One-, 5-, 10-, and 15-year relative survival ratios were 0.98 (95% CI 0.97–0.99), 0.93 (0.91–0.95), 0.82 (0.79–0.84), and 0.70 (0.64–0.76), respectively. Younger age at diagnosis of the gammopathy was associated with a significantly lower excess mortality compared to that in older patients (p