Prognostic Relevance of the Proportion of Residual Polyclonal Plasma Cells in the Diagnostic Bone Marrow of Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma Patients Managed Without Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant neoplasm of abnormal clonal plasma cells with heterogeneous clinical outcome. The proportion of clonal against polyclonal plasma cells (PPC) reflects the burden of disease, microenvironment status and underlying biology. Recently, the prognostic value of residual PPC at diagnosis has been demonstrated in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) treated with autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) and relapsed MM. However, it has not been studied in NDMM managed without ASCT. We present a study highlighting the prognostic relevance of the proportion of residual PPC in bone marrow aspirate (BM) NDMM managed without ASCT due to limited resources.