IS THE DURIE AND SALMON DIAGNOSTIC CLASSIFICATION-SYSTEM FOR PLASMA-CELL DYSCRASIAS STILL THE BEST CHOICE - APPLICATION OF 3 CLASSIFICATIONSYSTEMS TO A LARGE POPULATION-BASED REGISTRY OF PARAPROTEINEMIA AND MULTIPLE-MYELOMA

There are a number of systems for diagnosing multiple myeloma, myeloma variants and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance. We c ompared three systems, those according to Durie and Salmon, to Kyle an d Greipp, and to the British Columbia Cancer Agency, using material fr om a population-based registry of 847 patients with a paraproteinemia, or multiple myeloma. Of these, 157 underwent both bone marrow and X-r ay examinations and were subsequently included in our analysis. The di fferences between the systems were small, even though in only 64% of t he cases the diagnosis according to all three systems was identical. T he system used by the British Columbia Cancer Agency turned out to be the shortest and easiest system reviewed here. We propose a more frequ ent application of this system instead of the more commonly used Durie and Salmon and Kyle and Greipp criteria.