The prognostic significance of CD45 expression by clonal bone marrow plasma cells in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma

Evaluation of clonal plasma cells (PCs) in the bone marrow (BM) of multiple myeloma (MM) patients reveals two distinct clonal PC populations based on the presence or absence of CD45 expression. We explored the prognostic significance of CD45 expression by clonal PCs in the BM of MM patients in the era of novel agent therapy. All 156 MM patients seen at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester from 2009 to 2011 who had their BM evaluated by multiparametric flow cytometry were included. Patients whose BM had ≥20% of the clonal PCs expressing CD45 were classified as CD45 positive (+) and the rest as CD45 negative (−). Of these patients, the median overall survival (OS) for patients in the CD45 (+) group (n = 43, 28%) was 38 months versus not reached for the CD45 (−) group (n = 113, 72%) (P = 0.009). In a multivariable analysis, CD45 (+) status was an independent predictor of inferior OS among newly diagnosed patients with MM. CD45 expression may be a surrogate for a more aggressive phenotype of MM and warrants further investigation.