Abstract
In order to treat patients with symptomatic amyloidosis, the amyloidosis must be typed with confidence. Immunohistochemical techniques for light-chain isotype identification of amyloid are not reliable, and techniques to type fibrils extracted from clinical specimens are neither widely available nor validated. Retrospectively, investigators in the United Kingdom have shown that hereditary amyloidosis can be misdiagnosed as AL in 10% of cases because family history is often not relevant and because a monoclonal gammopathy (MG) and an hereditary variant can be present in the same patient (
NEJM
2002
;346
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Corresponding author
2005, The American Society of Hematology
2005