Clinical significance of serum sialic acid in diagnosis and treatment of IgA type multiple myeloma

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of serum sialic acid (SA) in the diagnosis and treatment of IgA type multiple myeloma (MM). Methods The level of serum SA in 50 healthy subjects and 70 patients with MM were determined. Results In MM group, there were 25 cases of IgA type, 51 cases of other than IgA type (40 cases of IgG type, 7 cases of light chain type MM, 4 cases of non-secreting type MM). In healthy subjects, patients with IgA, IgG, light chain, non-secreting types and other than IgA type, the serum SA levels were (570.33 ± 67.72) mg/L, (1 289.24 ± 325.42) mg/L, (585.88 ± 159.12) mg/L, (600.77 ± 126.90) mg/L, (590.50 ± 100.86) mg/L, and (588.39 ± 150.90) mg/L. The serum SA level of IgA type patients was higher than those of healthy subjects and other types (all P 0.05). The serum SA level of IgA type patients had positive correlations with serum IgA, globulin, bone marrow smear myeloma cell population and ESR (r values were 0.699, 0.753, 0.504, and 0.732, all P 0.05). The level of serum SA in IgA type patients decreased with the improvement of the condition, and increased with the severity of the disease. Conclusions In MM patients, serum SA level in IgA type is high. The serum SA is an index for reflecting the tumor load capacity, and can evaluate the therapeutic efficiency of IgA type MM patients. Key words: Multiple myeloma; Sialic acids; Immunoglobulin A