Analysis of Bone Marrow Stromal Cells in Patients With Myeloma During Chemotherapy
Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Based on the findings of a comparative analysis of quantitative changes in the populations of cells in the bone marrow microenvironment of patients with multiple myeloma undergoing chemotherapy, Dolgikh et al, of the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Pathomorphology, Novosibirsk, Russia, revealed that these changes “can be taken in account during assessing the phase of hemoblastosis and the effectiveness of chemotherapy.” They reported their findings in the Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine.
A total of 21 patients (7 men and 14 women) were the focus of examination at the onset of multiple myeloma; 14 patients were evaluated in the phase of response to chemotherapy (5 men and 9 women); 7 patients were studied during relapse (2 men and 5 women). All of the patients received treatment at the State Novosibirsk Regional Clinical Hospital between 2006 and 2012. The control group included 10 patients without hematologic malignancies and anemic syndrome (6 men and 4 women), who underwent cytologic analysis of the bone marrow microenvironment.
According to the investigators, “in the active phase of hemoblastoses, the number of reticular cells and fibroblasts in trephine biopsy specimens was higher than in the phase of respond to chemotherapy and in the control group.” In fact, in those who experienced loss of treatment response, the percentage ratio of adipocytes in the bone marrow increased by 9-fold to 13-fold. In addition, in these patients with multiple myeloma, “the percentage of fibroblasts in aspirates of the bone marrow at the disease onset was higher than during relapse of the disease and during response to chemotherapy.
“The increase in the percentage of adipocytes during relapse/loss of response to chemotherapy can be considered as an additional criterion of tumor process activity and the absence of the effect of the applied chemotherapy,” the authors concluded.
