Ficolled bone marrow is superior to bone marrow buffy coat for detection of minimal residual disease in multiple myeloma.

Objective Buffy coat and ficoll of bone marrow (BM) are viable options for the study of minimal residual disease (MRD) in multiple myeloma (MM). As yet, there is no data about the superiority of either sample types. Herein, we aimed to address this issue. Methods Forty pairs of ficolled BMs and BM buffy coats of 19 MM patients were studied for MRD by allele-specific oligonucleotide real-time quantitative PCR, with patient-specific primers/probes whenever appropriate. Results There were 41 pairs of MRD data for comparison analysis due to one patient with biclonal disease. MRD levels in ficolls and buffy coats were highly concordant (r(s) = 0.936, P < 0.0001), with 31 (76%) and seven (17%) pairs being concomitantly MRD-positive or -negative. On the other hand, apart from the 16 pairs being both MRD-negative, or -positive but not quantifiable in ficolls and buffy coats, majority (n = 22, 88%) had higher MRD levels in ficolled BMs than BM buffy coats. Furthermore, in 17 pairs, in which MRD was quantifiable in both, MRD levels in ficolled BMs were 3.1 times those of BM buffy coats (median, 567/10(5) vs. 184/10(5), P = 0.001). Conclusion Taken together, ficolled BM is more sensitive than BM buffy coat for MRD detection in MM, hence should be recommended.