Fig. 2.

Plasma has a lower non-specific background and detects disease group differences that are not seen using serum. a CHEX control beads show similar average MFI between disease groups (healthy vs. MM). There are some significant differences between plasma and serum in CHEX1, 2, and 3. But most notably, CHEX 4, which assesses non-specific background, is significantly lower in plasma when compared to serum. b IL-12p70 and IL-2 show significantly higher plasma levels in healthy controls when compared to multiple myeloma patients. These differences are not significant in serum. IL-12p70 and IL-2 are low-level cytokines that decrease in disease groups relative to controls, and the lower non-specific background in plasma likely accounts for this. Significances were calculated using a two-sided Student’s t test. *p <0.05, **p <0.01, ***p <0.001. n = 6 (healthy), n = 10 (MM). MM = multiple myeloma