Severe pulmonary complications in African-American patient after bortezomib therapy.

Bortezomib is a proteosome inhibitor with good clinical activity in multiple myeloma. Frequently described side effects are gastrointestinal symptoms, neuropathy, and thrombocytopenia. Even though pneumonia is listed as an infrequent toxicity, severe pneumonitis leading to respiratory distress had not been described until recently. This report was from a single institution in Japan. All these patients had received bone marrow transplant before therapy with bortezomib. To the authors knowledge, this is the first report of life-threatening pulmonary toxicity after bortezomib in a non-Japanese patient and without history of prior autologous peripheral stem cell transplant.