[Serum ferritin and beta-2-microglobulin in multiple myeloma]

In 76 patients with clinically well defined multiple myeloma (median age at diagnosis: 68.5 years) serum-ferritin (SF) and beta 2-microglobulin (beta 2M) were measured by RIA-methods. 70 sex and age-matched healthy individuals served as controls. Both serum-ferritin (median: 343 micrograms/l vs. 193 micrograms/l; p less than 10(-7)) and beta 2M (median: 4.25 mg/l vs. 3.5 mg/l; p less than 0.01) showed a significant increase in myeloma patients compared to controls. Intercorrelation analysis revealed significant correlations between SF and tumour mass, serum-creatinine and beta 2M and between beta 2M and tumour mass, percentage of plasma cell infiltration in bone marrow, agglutinin titer, serum-creatinine, hemoglobin and age of the patients. Both tumour proteins might gain clinical importance particularly in those patients in which precise monitoring of disease is impossible either due to lack of paraprotein production or due to the particular paraprotein type. This seems to account for patients with light chain paraproteins, and furthermore for those patients with biclonal gammopathies or with IgE- and/or IgD-paraproteins.