Paraproteins

Paraproteins are protein complexes resulting from mutations of individual human genes. They can form in blood serum or other body fluids. In clinical practice, paraproteins cause severe disease of the lungs, joints, digestive system and other organs.

Paraproteins are protein particles that are formed by successive amino acids containing several residues of different proteins. They affect certain organs, such as the lungs, and can cause serious damage to the human body. To prevent the disease, the doctor performs blood tests to identify possible paraproteins. The analysis can be carried out as an independent method or in combination with other methods.

Treatment of paraproteus disease may include both drug therapy and surgery. Chemotherapy is usually used, but sometimes they do not improve with the use of certain drugs. Healing paraprotein requires surgery, which involves removing the affected organ. Clinics in many countries around the world regularly perform operations to treat paraprotein disease.

Paraproteins are protein particles consisting of protein, but also including non-protein components.

The definition of this concept arose relatively recently; research and analysis of proteins in the blood have been carried out for a long time, but a full decoding became possible only after the advent of mass spectrometry technology. Previously, they did not even have a specific name; the proteins were called “protein disorders.” Then they began to be defined so that they could be distinguished from other types of proteins, including Alzheimer's disease, amyloid, etc. In general, because of the similarities with them, scientists began to use this term to designate a new species. The first case was discovered in 1962 when a lymph node was examined in a patient with lymphoma. Experts discovered that one of the patient's cancer cells produced a protein that was located in the tumor, outside its cellular environment, along with other proteins. A little later, during a further search, scientists were able to discover dozens of similar cases at once. It turned out that the secretions of these proteins have an abnormal composition and shape. This was the reason for the discovery of **paraproteins**, which revealed themselves as **disorders of protein metabolism**. And naturally, such a symptom has become one of the criteria for diagnosing cancer itself, since it is often associated with a blood disease. Unlike cancer tumor cells, paraprotein is formed not only at the stage of cancer growth, but even before its manifestation. That is, its detection always indicates the emergence of a malignant tumor in the process of constant self-reproduction of tumor-derived proteins. These protein formations provoke active secretion of paraprotein in the tissue, which gradually accumulates it. The protein begins to disrupt all the functioning of soft tissues. Gradually it penetrates from the tissues into the blood and this process continues unhindered until a person is diagnosed with cancer. And if a paraprotein is found in a person with cancer, then these same specialists are able to significantly alleviate the course of the disease. But of course, not if appropriate therapy is not carried out in time.