[Evaluation of a morphologic staging method (myeloma progression score) in multiple myeloma]

One hundred twentyone cases of multiple myeloma were classified according to a myeloma progression score based on the relative frequencies of plasma cells and plasma blasts in bone marrow aspirate. A significant correlation was observed between calculated myeloma progression score and survival (p less than 0.001). Moreover, significant differences were found between mean survivals and survival curves in the three stages (p less than 0.01). The value of the method was limited by the non-uniform distribution of the patients in the three stage groups, at least in our study. These results confirm that the morphological scoring staging system is useful and reliable and that it can be successfully used as an additional system, together with clinical staging systems, for predicting survival in patients with multiple myeloma.