ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT Multiple myeloma (MM) is a malignant plasma cell (PC) dyscrasia of the bone marrow (BM) that could be preceded by monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined signicance (MGUS) or smoldering MM (SMM), and it can evolve into extramedullary disease with more aggressive disease in the form of primary or secondary PC leukemia. The recent advances in molecular cytogenetic and genomic proling studies have provided better understanding of the pathogenesis and mechanisms of the multistep model of disease progression. Few biomarkers, invasive and noninvasive, have been identied, which could be divided into multiple categories related to the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of myeloma. Due to the nature of cancer, many of these biomarkers overlap in their potential clinical applications, and many are still awaiting clinical validation. The use of bioinformatics to integrate the massive complexity of the data sets generated by the whole genome proling techniques should help improve the management of MM and may hasten the arrival of a new era of personalized therapies guided by specic biomarkers.
