[marianParticipant]

Hi

I havn’t been on here for a while.  Three years ago I was diagnosed with SMM and kept fairly well.

I am now more tired and am now struggling to understand my blood results. Paraproteins 48,g/l.    Hb 10.8 ? I think that is ? borderline.  Free lambda light chains 92.7mg/l.  This what I don’t understand and should I know the ?? ratio  with Kappa light chains?

I’ve started having blood tests 6 weekly, no treatment yet.

I read the forum with interest and wondered if someone would be kind and explain and help me understand these results.

Best wishes

Marian

[peterlParticipant]

Hello Marian,

I’ll do my best.  Your lambda LCs are a bit on the high side, but not that much. From memory, the max value in the range is about 26 or 28 mg/L. I haven’t got my notes with me, and you can check this number.   For some reason with light chain MM the nasties produced are either kappa or lambda, but not both. So the ratio is fairly important because is tells the medics which FLC is on the high side. If both kappa and lambda LCs are increasing the ratio may remain in the normal range, although both k and la are increasing. And this would be indicative of some other problem, but probably not full blown MM. If the ratio is high, then k MM would apply. If the ratio is low, then la MM would apply.

I understand that the medics use the ratio to stage the MM and use it to assess the progress of the disease.

Best wishes,

Peter

[Author]

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