The Evaluation of Serum Protein and Serum Immunofixation Electrophoresis Results in Patients with Monoclonal and Polyclonal Gammopathy: A Single Center Experience

Objectives: To survey the diagnostic performance of serum protein electrophoresis (SPE) and serum immunofixation electrophoresis (SIFE) in clinical practice of gammopathies.Methods: One hundered and fifty five patients were evaluated by a retrospective review of our patient records to demostrate the SPE and SIFE results performed by the Clinical Biochemistry.The patients were divided into three groups as monoclonal gammopathy group (MGG), polyclonal gammopathy group (PGG) and biclonal gammopathy group (BGG).Results: Of the 155 patients, 48 (31%) were in MGG, 104 (67.1%) were in PGG and 3 (1.9%)were in BGG.In totally, there was an M spike in the gamma region in 113 patients, and of these patients, only 49 (43.4%) have been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma.Of the 49 patients, 38 (79.1%) were in MGG, 8 (7.7%) were in PGG, and 3 (100%) were in BGG.When SPE plus SIFE were the testing panel, 11 (22.5%)patients were missed.The cutoff values were found as 7.25 for total protein (AUC = 0.728; p < 0.05) and 70.5 for erythrocyte sedimentation rate (AUC = 0.692; p < 0.05). Conclusions:We demostrate that no single clinical laboratory test has sufficient sensitivity for the spectrum of plasma cell disorders.Because of missed 11 (22.5%)patients with myeloma in our study, a SPE be performed at the same time with SIFE results should be interpreted carefully.