Amyloidosis and Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia

Primary systemic amyloidosis is an immunoglo-bulin light chain disorder that is 1/5th as com-mon as multiple myeloma. Amyloidosis is regularly seen in the practice of a hematologist and has recently undergone major advances in terms of the ability to evaluate responses as well as new therapeutic options that were not avail-able when this topic was covered as an educa-tion session at the American Society of Hematol-ogy meeting 5 years ago. Waldenström macroglo-bulinemia (WM) is rarer than amyloidosis (1500 per year WM versus 3000 per year amyloid in the US), and recent consensus panels have estab-lished the definition of the disease, the diagnos-tic criteria, criteria for initiation of therapy and