"Primary" Systemic Amyloidosis and Myeloma

"Primary" systemic amyloidosis is at times the root of an obscure problem. Its cause is unknown but has for some years been regarded as closely related to multiple myeloma. This close relationship and the view that both are primary plasmocytic diseases, perhaps varying aspects of the same disease, as been reemphasized lately.1,2In the present review of systemic amyloidosis, bone-marrow cytologic findings and other data were studied with this possibility in mind. "Primary" systemic amyloidosis, for purposes of this study, was regarded as a condition associated with deposition of a homogeneous, amorphous, proteinaceous material that stains pink with hematoxylin and eosin, metachromatically with methyl violet, red with Congo red, and yellow or pink with van Gieson stain, and that occurs in the absence of preexisting or coexisting etiologic disease other than myeloma. Review of Literature Perhaps the first report of primary amyloidosis in the literature was made by Wilks