Quantitative Determination of Immunoglobulins as a Diagnostic Tool for Paraproteinemia

Quantitation of serum immunoglobulin was made in 14 cases of multiple myeloma and in one case of Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, using an antibody-agar plate method. Most of the patients with multiple myeloma showed a monoclonal increase of gamma globulin. One case of multiple myeloma and the case of Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia demonstrated a specific increase of gamma AA and of gamma M, respectively. The imm_??_moelectrophoretic patterns of these serums were compared with the results of quantitative analysis by the antibody-agar plate. In most of the cases both methods recognized paraprotein, but in some cases only one of these two immunological methods could detect paraprotein. Therefore, both methods seem useful in diagnosing a paraproteinemia. It should be stressed that Waldenström's macroglobulinemia in this study was diagnosed by the antibody-agar plate method prior to the ultracentrifugal analysis.