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INTRODUCTION: Bone involvement in Multiple Myeloma results from increased osteoclast formation and activity that occurs in proximity to myeloma cells. The role of Alkaline Phosphatse (ALP) in this process and the diagnostic significance of plasma levels in patients with MM are unclear. AIM: To compare plasma ALP levels in patients with MM and solid cancers and metastatic lesions to the bone. RESULTS: In this observational retrospective study we enrolled 901 patients were enrolled: 440 patients (49%) with Multiple Myeloma, 461 (51%) with solid cancers. All 901 patients had bone lesions. Among patients with Multiple Myeloma, ALP values were mainly in the range of normality than those observed in patients with solid cancers and bone lesions. This difference is independent of stage, number and type of bone lesions. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that plasma ALP has a different clinical significance in MM than in other neoplasms and could be used as a discriminating marker in presence of bone lesions. In particular, lower or normal values, should suggest further investigations such as urinary and serum electrophoresis, associated with bone marrow aspirate in case of the presence of a monoclonal component, in order to confirm or exclude a MM diagnosis.
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BACKGROUND: The Adonhers (aged donor heart rescue by stress-echo protocol) Project was created to resolve the current shortage of donor hearts. One of the great limits of stress echo is the operator dependency. Speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE), offering a quantitative objective analysis of myocardial deformation, may help to overcome this limit. This study aimed to verify feasibility of a stress-strain echo analysis in selection of aged donor hearts for heart transplant. METHODS: From February 2014 to October 2015, 22 marginal candidate donors (16 men) ages 58 ± 4 years were initially enrolled. After legal declaration of brain death, all marginal donors underwent bedside echocardiography, with baseline and (when resting echocardiography was normal) dipyridamole (0.84 mg/kg in 6 minutes) stress echo. In all patients, left ventricular (LV) longitudinal myocardial deformation was obtained by STE in the 4-, 2-, and 3-chamber views, obtaining the average global longitudinal strain (GLS). GLS was assessed at baseline and at the peak of stress echo. RESULTS: Baseline echocardiography showed wall motion abnormalities in 9 patients (excluded from donation). Stress echocardiography was performed in the remaining 13 patients. Results were normal in 8, who were uneventfully transplanted in marginal recipients. Stress results were abnormal in 5 (excluded from donation). STE was obtained in all cases (100% feasibility) and ΔGLS was significantly different between normal and pathological stress-echo (+13.2 ± 5.2 versus -6.1% ± 3.1%, P = .0001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: STE showed an excellent feasibility in analysis of LV myocardial longitudinal strain at baseline and at the peak of stress echo of marginal heart donors. Further experience is needed to confirm STE as a valuable additional mean to better interpret stress echo in marginal donors.