[asah]

Significance of Bence Jones protein in diagnosis?

by asah on Sun Oct 11, 2015 12:51 pm

Hi everyone,

My serum free light chain test results came out showing elevated kappa and lambda con­cen­trations with a kappa-lambda ratio of 2.05. The report says that people with renal impairment could have a ratio up to 3.1.

What freaked me out is that Bence Jones protein was detected through the immunofixation test without quantifying. How significant is Bence Jones protein in the diagnosis of multiple myeloma?

My serum protein electrophoresis says monoclonal gammopathy suspected with all immunoglobulin elevated.

Just to note I was in an antibiotic in the last 2 months due to severe infection, which caused my kidney to fail with my creatinine at 2.1 after reaching 4.2 and hemoglobin of 10.

Any thoughts?

[Multibilly]

Re: Significance of Bence Jones protein in diagnosis?

by Multibilly on Sun Oct 11, 2015 4:02 pm

Hi Asah,

Welcome to the forum.

Infections can increase your immunoglobulin and free light chain values. Do you know why your doctor ordered these various tests?

It sounds like you had a serum immunofixation test. What specifically was stated in the immunofixation test result?

It also sounds like you had a serum free light chain assay test. What were your kappa and lambda values, including the units of measure and reference ranges?

You mentioned you had a serum protein electrophoresis test, which actually quantifies all the various proteins in your blood, including any monoclonal protein. Was there any mention of an "abnormal band", "M-spike", "paraprotein", "monoclonal protein", etc in that lab report? If so, what was that value?

You also said that all your immunoglobuin levels were elevated. What were those values for your IgG, IgA and IgM and their associated reference ranges?