Chest
Volume 102, Issue 3, September 1992, Pages 946-948
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Selected Reports
Diverse Roentgenographic Manifestations of the Rare Pulmonary Involvement in Myeloma

https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.102.3.946Get rights and content

Roentgenographic manifestations of two cases of pulmonary involvement with myeloma were presented. One showed a nodular mass lesion extending from an extramedullary mediastinal plasmacytoma into the lung parenchyma while the other showed diffuse reticulonodular infiltrate by myeloma cells in association with alveolar septal amyloidosis. These two cases demonstrate the extreme variability of pulmonary involvement by myeloma, which can mimic a solitary tumor or an inflammatory infiltrate.

Section snippets

Case 1

A 74-year-old previously healthy man developed some wheezing and vague chest discomfort for about ten days and had a routine chest roentgenogram taken that showed a well-demarcated opacity in the right infrahilar region encroaching on and circumferentially enveloping the right middle and lower lobe bronchi (Fig 1). Findings from the review of his systems were otherwise essentially unremarkable. A bronchoscopy revealed that the right main-stem bronchus appeared to be involved by a mass lesion.

Discussion

Pulmonary involvement in myeloma is so rare that no attention has been paid to such occurrence in several large series.2, 8 Kintzer et al9 found that 46 percent of patients in a series of 958 cases had thoracic involvement by myeloma. Most of them showed bone involvement or pulmonary infiltrate secondary to an infectious process. Only 11 patients developed extramedullary plasmacytoma in the thorax, and four patients had pulmonary infiltrate suggestive of myeloma cell infiltrate (only one

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Supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada.

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