Abstract
BackgroundMultiple myeloma (MM) is a type of hematological malignancy with significant heterogeneity in clinical features and prognosis. Cytogenetic abnormalities are the major factors affecting patient outcomes. Studies have shown that immunohistochemistry (IHC)-based detection of cancer-related genes expression could be alternative indicators for the prognosis of MM.MethodsNuclear expression of c-maf protein in the bone marrow plasma cells of 128 multiple myeloma patients were examined by IHC, and its association with the clinicopathological features of MM patients was analyzed as well.ResultsAmong the 128 patients, the positive rate of c-maf protein expression was up to 30.5%, which had no correlation with patient age, M protein type, Durie-Salmon staging system, the International Staging System, abnormal plasma cell ratio in the bone marrow, or the level of peripheral blood hemoglobin, serum calcium or lactate dehydrogenase. However, the c-maf-positive patients had a significantly higher rate of hypoproteinemia (p = 0.026) and higher serum β2-microglobulin levels (>2500 μg/L) (p = 0.007). Patients with negative c-maf expression had higher remission rates upon the treatment of non-bortezomib-based regimens although no effect of c-maf expression on progression-free survival or overall survival was observed.ConclusionPatients with negative c-maf expression had higher remission rates upon the treatment of non-bortezomib-based regimens although no effect of c-maf expression on survival was observed. A further large-scale prospective study is required to verify these findings.
Highlights
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a type of hematological malignancy with significant heterogeneity in clinical features and prognosis
Studies have shown that the use of immunohistochemistry (IHC) to detect the expression of cancer-related genes, such as fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3), the tumor suppressor gene p53, and transcription factor c-maf can be an alternative method for the prognostic analysis of MM [14,15,16,17]
Our results showed that in MM patients, the c-maf expression in the bone marrow plasma cells was significantly correlated with the serum β2-microglobulin levels in the peripheral blood
Summary
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a type of hematological malignancy with significant heterogeneity in clinical features and prognosis. Studies have shown that immunohistochemistry (IHC)-based detection of cancer-related genes expression could be alternative indicators for the prognosis of MM. There are many cell surface molecules and intracellular molecular markers that abnormally expressed in malignant plasma cells, which are closely related to disease prognosis [9,10,11,12,13]. Studies have shown that the use of immunohistochemistry (IHC) to detect the expression of cancer-related genes, such as fibroblast growth factor receptor 3 (FGFR3), the tumor suppressor gene p53, and transcription factor c-maf can be an alternative method for the prognostic analysis of MM [14,15,16,17]. We utilized immunohistochemistry to examine the expression of the transcription factor c-maf, the cellular homolog of v-maf, in MM patients in China to retrospectively analyze its correlation with disease characteristics, treatment efficacy, and patient survival
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