Prevalence of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance in a large population with annual medical check-ups in China

摘要

Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance(MGUS) is a clinically asymptomatic premalignant plasmacell disorder, which may develop to multiple myeloma(MM), light-chain amyloidosis, Waldenstro?m macroglobulinemia,or other related malignancies1. The crudeprevalence of MGUS varies from 0.05% to 6.1% amongdistinct population from different countries, which isinfluenced by race, age, sex, family history, immunosuppression,and pesticide exposure2. So far, manypopulation-based studies of MGUS come from the whiteor black population living in Western and African countries.One of the largest population-based study in theUSA showed that the prevalence of MGUS was 3.2% inthe Caucasian general population aged ≥50 years3, whilethe rate was even higher in African-Americans to be3.7%4. However, data on the epidemiology of MGUSremain largely undefined in Asians. Some populationbasedstudies among population from Thailand, Korea,and Hong Kong were relatively limited due to smallsample sizes5–7. Therefore, we conducted this study todetermine the prevalence and characteristics of MGUSamong a large population with annual medical check-upsin a well-defined geographic area in China.