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In an effort to describe the mechanism of bone erosion in patients with multiple myeloma, supernatant fluids from the short-term cultures of bone marrow aspirated from seven patients with myeloma were examined. Six contained a factor that stimulated osteoclastic bone resorption (calcium release greater than controls) in organ culture. This factor was biologically and chemically similar to osteoclast-activating factor, a mediator produced by phytohemagglutinin-activated normal peripheral blood leukocytes. Cultures of bone-marrow cells obtained from seven other patients with a variety of hematologic disorders did not produce a stimulator of bone resorption. Morphologic examination of autopsy and biopsy samples of bone from 37 patients with myeloma showed osteoclasts on bone-resorbing surfaces adjacent to areas of heavy myeloma-cell infiltration. It is suggested that osteolytic bone lesions and hypercalcemia in myeloma are due to the secretion of a soluble factor by myeloma cells that in turn stimulates osteoclastic activity in adjacent bone. N Engl J Med 291: 1041–1046, 1974)
Mundy et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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