“…The frequency with which M components are detected appears to vary considerably depending on the composition of the popu lations studied, especially with respect to age distribution and state of health [1,7,13,14,24,28,30]. In spite of the development during the last few years of more sophisticated tech niques of protein analysis, the simple elec trophoretic separation of serum proteins fol lowed by visual inspection of the pattern re mains an indispensable tool in screening for monoclonal immunoglobulin abnormalitities [8,13,18,23], However, improved electro phoretic techniques, capable of better reso It is well known that the discovery of a serum M component (or paraprotein) can not be regarded as synonymous with myelo ma or related malignant immunoproliferative diseases. Paraproteins have been en countered in association with a wide variety of conditions rather heterogeneous with re spect to aetiology and pathogenesis and also in apparently healthy persons [1,3,7,10,20,24,[28][29][30].…”