hematology and oncology
Heavy Chain Diseases
Introduction
Heavy chain diseases are neoplastic plasma cell disorders characterized by overproduction of monoclonal immunoglobulin heavy chains. Symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment vary according to the specific disorder. (See also Overview of Plasma Cell Disorders .) ) heavy chain disease has not been described. Most heavy chain proteins are fragments of their normal counterparts with internal deletions of variable length; these deletions appear to result from structural genetic mutations. The clinical picture is more like Overview of Lymphoma than 