Interleukin-6 dependence of advanced malignant plasma cell dyscrasias

The authors, and others, clearly have established that interleukin-6 (IL-6) is the major growth factor for human myeloma cells in vitro. It is a critical conceptual point whether or not IL-6 remains involved in the final phases of disease progression in malignant plasma cell dyscrasias. To answer this question, the authors evaluated the in vitro IL-6 dependence of the proliferation of myeloma cells from the bone marrow of 13 patients with advanced multiple myeloma (MM) and from the peripheral blood of 13 patients with plasma cell leukemia (seven primary and six secondary cases). Their results show that myeloma cell growth was totally dependent on IL-6 in 25 of 26 patients. Myeloma cells of only one patient did not respond to IL-6 in vitro. Actually, the cells from this patient were not proliferating in vivo. Identical patterns of IL-6 dependence of myeloma cells were found in the peripheral blood and bone marrow from four patients with PCL. The authors conclude that, in the terminal phase of malignant plasma cell dyscrasias, tumoral growth is totally dependent on IL-6 in vitro. This observation is critical in considering the investigation of anti-IL-6 therapy in patients with advanced MM.