Impeded normal hematopoiesis in bone marrow of patients with multiple myeloma

Insufficient output of mature blood cells frequently accompanies the typical impairments of late B cell development in multiple myeloma (MM). In a large group of previously untreated patients, bone marrow samples were analyzed and showed a general decrease of mononuclear cell (MNC) content. Colony growth of granulo-monocytic progenitors in short-term assays is compromised in a substantial number of patients at partly severe degrees, who at the same time show higher plasma cell content and belong to clinically more severe groups; the other patients show normal in vitro growth, contain less plasmocytes in the marrow and belong to varying degrees of aggressiveness. Thus a heterogeneity of the disease is emerging on the level of bone marrow cells which matches with high aggressiveness of the disease in one type. It can be speculated that in this type there are different underlying mutational events compared to the others: besides the characteristic changes in B cell differentiation, here the cellular defects have an impact on normal granulo-monocytic (and other) progenitor recruitment, which is absent in the other cases.