The incidence of lung cancer during pregnancy is rising due to the high rate of smokers in young women and the late mean age of pregnancy; in addition, considering that the patients are young women with a higher incidence of molecular alterations, molecular testing in lung adenocarcinoma should always be performed, even in pregnancy. Here, we report the case of a lung adenocarcinoma diagnosed during pregnancy with a long survival who benefitted from brain radiotherapy, conventional chemotherapy, and ALK TKI-targeted treatment. It reveals the safety of whole brain radiotherapy during pregnancy and consideration of other brain radiation techniques even in palliative cases, which should be personalized and managed by a multidisciplinary team. However, upfront management of brain metastasis in ALK-positive patients remains unresolved.Pleural effusion is a rare presentation of plasma cell myeloma, occurring in around 6% of patients during the course of their disease, most commonly as a consequence of a concurrent disease process like heart failure secondary to amyloid deposition. Direct infiltration of the pleural fluid by malignant cells leading to myelomatous pleural effusion is a rare mechanism occurring in less than 1% of patients with plasma cell myeloma, and it is associated with a worse prognosis. There are few case reports of myelomatous pleural effusion as an initial presentation of multiple myeloma. Pleural fluid infiltration by monoclonal plasma cells in the absence of an underlying plasma cell myeloma was not reported before in the literature. Tuberculosis is a known cause of polyclonal gammaglobulinemia, however few case reports described the coexistence of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance and tuberculosis. Here we present an interesting case of pleural fluid infiltration by an abnormal looking clonal plasma cells associated with active pulmonary tuberculosis and parapneumonic effusion in a patient with a background of acute myeloid leukemia. Interestingly, the clonal plasma cell proliferation was confined to the pleural fluid without any evidence of an underlying plasma cell neoplasms (including monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance and plasmacytomas). Since our patient had an underlying meyloid neoplasm, we though about the possibility of secondary malignancy. However, in almost all patients with coexisting myeloid and plasma cell neoplasms, myeloid neoplasms developed following chemotherapeutic treatment of plasma cell neoplasms not the other way around. Given that, one must conclude localized extramedullary (pleural) plasma cell proliferation probably represents a transient reactive process to pulmonary tuberculosis which is an extremely rare phenomenon and not described before.
Radiation recall dermatitis (RRD) is a rare complication that occurs after completion of radiation therapy (RT) and initiation of a precipitating agent, most commonly chemotherapeutic medications. Various theories attempt to explain the mechanism, including activation of the body's inflammatory pathways through nonimmune activation. Likewise, radiation-induced organizing pneumonia (RIOP) is an infrequent but potentially life-threatening complication of RT that, while not fully understood, is suspected to be partly an autoimmune reaction.
We present the case of a 71-year-old female with a history of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, interstitial cystitis, and osteoarthritis who presented with clinical stage T1N0M0 ER+/PR-/HER2- invasive ductal carcinoma of the lower outer quadrant of the left breast, for which she underwent left segmental mastectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy followed by completion axillary lymph node dissection. this website Her final pathologic stage was T1N1M0.
The patient developed RRD and later RIOP following receipt of radiation and chemotherapy, which resolved with steroid administration.
The rarity of both RRD and RIOP occurring in a patient, as in our case, suggests a shared pathophysiology behind these two complications. As both reactions involve some degree of inflammation and respond to corticosteroids, it seems likely that the etiologies of RRD and RIOP lie within the inflammatory pathway. However, further investigation should evaluate the frequency, duration, and triggering of concomitant RRD and RIOP.
The rarity of both RRD and RIOP occurring in a patient, as in our case, suggests a shared pathophysiology behind these two complications. As both reactions involve some degree of inflammation and respond to corticosteroids, it seems likely that the etiologies of RRD and RIOP lie within the inflammatory pathway. However, further investigation should evaluate the frequency, duration, and triggering of concomitant RRD and RIOP.Metastatic ovarian cancer to the breast is a rare presentation, with limited cases reported worldwide. Common sites for distant metastasis in ovarian cancer are to the liver, lung, and pleura [Dauplat et al. Cancer. 1987 Oct 1;60(7)1561-6]. Usually, such cases predict poor prognosis with troublesome management. We present one challenging case of a 54-year-old female patient with recurrent clear cell ovarian cancer, presenting with right breast mass of primary versus secondary origin, progressing into inflammatory breast cancer picture. Our report aims to shed light on the value of early suspicion and low threshold of detecting secondary breast masses of ovarian cancer origin.Off-label drug use refers to drug use beyond the specifications authorized for marketing [J Med Case Rep. 2014 Dec;8(1)303]. Eltrombopag is a thrombopoietin receptor agonist that has been used in treating thrombocytopenia due to chronic liver disease (CLD) as an off-label medication. Treatment of thrombocytopenia in patients with CLD constitute a real dilemma as the options are limited and some of them are invasive. However, thrombopoietin receptor agonist has been increasingly used for this purpose. Here we report a 34-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with CLD due to autoimmune hepatitis 20 years ago. Her condition was complicated with portal vein thrombosis, chronic thrombocytopenia, and variceal hemorrhage, and she has been listed as a candidate for liver transplantation. Given her high risk of bleeding, we started her on low dose of eltrombopag (25 mg daily) in order to maintain a platelet level of ≥50 × 10/µL. However, 1 year after initiation of the therapy, she developed left lower limb deep vein thrombosis.this website
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