Background: The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between plasma viscosity and immunoglobulin levels or total blood protein in order to establish the indication for plasmapheresis. Patients and Methods: 100 patients with monoclonal gammopathies (88 patients with multiple myeloma, 10 patients with immunocytoma, 2 patients with isolated plasmocytoma) were included in the study. Of these, 65 had an IgG gammopathy (62 with multiple myeloma, 2 with immunocytoma, 1 with an isolated plasmocytoma), 29 had an IgA gammopathy (26 with multiple myeloma, 2 with immunocytoma, 1 with an isolated plasmocytoma) and 6 had an IgM gammopathy (all with immunocytoma). Results: In total, 1,180 sera were tested. First we investigated the correlation between the immunoglobulin level and plasma viscosity: for the IgM, IgA and IgG monoclonality we found a correlation of r = 0.8413, r = 0.6718 and r = 0.5892, respectively. Regarding the correlations between total serum protein and plasma viscosity, the calculated r values were 0.6169 for IgM, 0.7431 for IgA, and 0.5405 for IgG. Conclusions: In summary, a close correlation between immunoglobulin levels and plasma viscosity can only be designated for the IgM monoclonality. It is hence always necessary to determine the plasma viscosity in order to establish the indication for plasmapheresis.

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1999
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