Fig. 1

Study attrition. ASCT, autologous stem cell transplantation; CDF, Cancer Drugs Fund; LoT, line of therapy; MM, multiple myeloma; SACT, systemic anti-cancer therapy. *Demographic characteristics were reported at diagnosis in n = 4,089 patients who had received at least one drug on the CDF register (Supplementary Sect. 2). †Patients may have received SACT therapies, but these were either not recorded (due to poor capture in the database or due to treatment received outside the NHS) or were recorded outside the time window set out in the algorithm rules (and, therefore, could not be reliably linked to ASCT). Note: Of the overall cohort, 211 patients had a LoT which contained only ASCT, and 182 had an ASCT record but no SACT. This suggests that these patients had missing SACT information, or that ASCT was received as treatment for a non-MM diagnosis. These patients were therefore removed from all survival-related objectives.