Monocyte Subsets and Serum Inflammatory and Bone-Associated Markers in Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance and Multiple Myeloma.

Background: Monocyte/macrophages have been shown to be altered in monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), smoldering (SMM) and active multiple myeloma (MM), with an impact on the disruption of the homeostasis of the normal bone marrow (BM) microenvironment.

Methods: We investigated the distribution of different subsets of monocytes (Mo) in blood and BM of newly-diagnosed untreated MGUS ( = 23), SMM ( = 14) and MM ( = 99) patients vs. healthy donors (HD; = 107), in parallel to a large panel of cytokines and bone-associated serum biomarkers.

Emerging Role of Podocalyxin in the Progression of Mature B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Mature B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (B-NHL) constitutes a group of heterogeneous malignant lymphoproliferative diseases ranging from indolent to highly aggressive forms. Although the survival after chemo-immunotherapy treatment of mature B-NHL has increased over the last years, many patients relapse or remain refractory due to drug resistance, presenting an unfavorable prognosis. Hence, there is an urgent need to identify new prognostic markers and therapeutic targets.

Prognostic value of antigen expression in multiple myeloma: a PETHEMA/GEM study on 1265 patients enrolled in four consecutive clinical trials.

Persistence of minimal residual disease (MRD) after treatment for myeloma predicts inferior outcomes, but within MRD-positive patients there is great heterogeneity with both early and very late relapses. Among different MRD techniques, flow cytometry provides additional information about antigen expression on tumor cells, which could potentially contribute to stratify MRD-positive patients. We investigated the prognostic value of those antigens required to monitor MRD in 1265 newly diagnosed patients enrolled in the GEM2000, GEM2005MENOS65, GEM2005MAS65 and GEM2010MAS65 protocols.

A simple flow-cytometry method to evaluate peripheral blood contamination of bone marrow aspirates.

Bone marrow (BM) aspirates used for flow-cytometry (FCM) studies are usually obtained from a second aspiration, as the primary aspirate is used for morphological assessment. For this reason, the FCM samples unavoidably contain some blood; although, good-quality samples contain only a small amount. It is of utmost importance to assess the quality of samples prior to FCM analysis; yet, contamination with peripheral blood (PB) is not evaluated in most laboratories, possibly because the methods available are either qualitative or too complex for daily practice.

Minimal residual disease monitoring and immune profiling in multiple myeloma in elderly patients.

The value of minimal residual disease (MRD) in multiple myeloma (MM) has been more frequently investigated in transplant-eligible patients than in elderly patients. Because an optimal balance between treatment efficacy and toxicity is of utmost importance in patients with elderly MM, sensitive MRD monitoring might be particularly valuable in this patient population. Here, we used second-generation 8-color multiparameter-flow cytometry (MFC) to monitor MRD in 162 transplant-ineligible MM patients enrolled in the PETHEMA/GEM2010MAS65 study.