Serum immunoglobulin free light chain correlates with tumor burden markers in Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, Leukemia & Lymphoma, Informa Healthcare

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Serum immunoglobulin free light chain correlates with tumor burden markers in Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia

2008, Vol. 49, No. 6 , Pages 1104-1107 (doi:10.1080/10428190802074619)

Xavier Leleu¹,², Anne-Sophie Moreau¹,², Edie Weller³, Aldo M. Roccaro¹, ValéRie Coiteux², Robert Manning¹, Marybeth Nelson¹, Renee Leduc¹, Daniela Robu², Sophie Dupire², Evdoxia Hatjiharissi¹, Nicholas Burwick¹, Stéphane Darre², Bernadette Hennache⁴, Steven P. Treon¹, Thierry Facon², Morie A. Gertz⁵ and Irene M. Ghobrial, MD¹ ^†

¹Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School Boston, MA, USA

²Service des Maladies du Sang, CHRU, Lille, France

³Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard School of Public Health Boston, MA, USA

⁴Laboratoire de Biochimie, CHRU, Lille, France

⁵Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic, RochesterUSA

Xavier Leleu and Anne-Sophie Moreau contributed equally to this work.

^†Correspondence: Irene M. Ghobrial, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney Street, Mayer 1B127, Boston, MA, 02115, USA, +1-617-632-4198, +1-617-632-4862 irene_ghobrial@dfci.harvard.edu

The serum IgM level has been utilised as a marker of tumor progression and to assess response to therapy in patients with Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia (WM). However, there are many limitations to the IgM protein level. The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of known tumor burden markers and prognostic factors with serum free light chain (sFLC) in 98 patients with WM. We demonstrated that sFLC measurement accurately differentiated IgM-MGUS compared with WM reflecting a measurement of tumor burden. In univariate and multivariate analysis, median sFLC at the cut-off at 60 mg/L was higher for WM patients with low hemoglobin and high β2M, when we applied the WM-IPSS cut-offs, but showed no association with IgM level. This study demonstrates that sFLC is a new marker in WM disease. Further analysis is required to prospectively study the role of sFLC in monitoring response to therapy and as a prognostic marker in WM patients.