Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffPlasma cells, which make up about 1 percent of the cells in bone marrow, produce some of the antibodies that help your body fight infection. Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance occurs when these cells produce an abnormal protein called monoclonal protein (M protein).
In the majority of people with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, the protein isn't harmful. But when too much M protein accumulates, it crowds out healthy cells in your bone marrow and can damage other tissues in your body.
Although genetic makeup may play a role in monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, it doesn't appear that family members of someone with this condition are more likely to have it.
- Monoclonal gammopathy. MayoClinic.org. http://www.mayoclinic.org/monoclonal-gammopathy. Accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
- Monoclonal gammopathy: Treatment. MayoClinic.org. http://www.mayoclinic.org/monoclonal-gammopathy/treatment.html. Accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
- Monoclonal gammopathies of undetermined significance (MGUS). The Merck Manuals Online Medical Library. http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec14/ch175/ch175b.html. Accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
- Kyle RA, et al. Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance. British Journal of Haemotology. 2006;134(6):573-589.
- Gertz M. What is monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance? International Myeloma Foundation. http://myeloma.org/main.jsp?type=article&id=879. Accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
- Rajkumar SV, et al. Recognition of monoclonal proteins. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
- New Mayo study shows higher prevalence of MGUS, a pre-cancerous blood disorder, than previously suspected. MayoClinic.org. http://www.mayoclinic.org/news2006-rst/3302.html. Accessed Sept. 5, 2008.
- Landgren O, et al. Risk of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and subsequent multiple myeloma among African American and white veterans in the United States. Blood. 2006;107(3):904-906.
