Mast cell density and its clinical relevance in Waldenström's macroglobulinemia

Abstract

The presence of numerous mast cells (MCs) mixed with tumor cells in the bone marrow (BM) is a hallmark of the diagnosis of Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (WM).MCs have been shown to support lymphoplasmacytic cell growth, but there is thus far no demonstration of the prognostic impact of BM MC density in WM. We investigated BM MC density by sensitive and specific digital quantification, allowing the analysis of a large area infiltrated by BM tumor cells. A total of 65 WM patients were investigated, including 54 at diagnosis and 11 at relapse. Tryptase and CD20 immunohistochemisty staining was performed on contiguous sections of deparaffinized BM trephine biopsies. After numerization of each section, the BM surface area was manually marked out,This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.