Microvessel density, a surrogate marker of angiogenesis, is significantly related to survival in multiple myeloma patients.

We evaluated microvessel density (MVD) in bone marrow biopsies (BM) from multiple myeloma (MM) patients after staining with anti-CD34 and anti-CD105 antibodies (mAbs). The anti-CD105 mAb was significantly more sensitive than the anti-CD34 mAb in visualizing blood vessels both in controls and MM samples. MVD was significantly higher in MM than in controls with both anti-CD34 and anti-CD105 mAbs. Patients with low CD34+ MVD survived longer than patients with higher MVD (P = 0.01), whereas there was no difference in survival between patients with low and high CD105+ MVD. Multivariate analysis confirmed the independent significant association between CD34+ MVD and survival (P = 0.001).