In a case of Crow-Fukase (POEMS) syndrome there was a chronic, progressive, and eventually lethal polyradiculoneuropathy. In addition, adenomegaly, oedema and pleural effusions, gonadic atrophy, serum monoclonal IgA, and skin pigmentation were present. Plain x-rays and CT scan of the pelvis and lower vertebrae showed multiple poorly defined lesions. At postmortem there was no myeloma and a bone mastocytosis was found. In addition, next to T11, there was an abdominal nodule, 2 cm in diameter, with histological characteristics of Castleman's angiofollicular lymphoid hyperplasia. Immunohistochemical studies showed that plasmocytes of this lesion secreted polyclonal immunoglobulins with a high prevalence of IgA. Thus, the primary interest of this case lies in the association of bone mastocytosis with a POEMS syndrome. Also, one single localisation of Castleman angiofollicular lymphoid hyperplasia was found, assumed to be in this case the cause of the POEMS syndrome. Therefore, a minute and benign hyperplasic lesion, which was only discovered at autopsy, secreted the protein responsible for the symptoms and signs, and eventually the patient's death.
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Cureus
December 2024
Internal Medicine, National Medical Center November 20, Mexico City, MEX.
Polyneuropathy, Organomegaly, Endocrinopathy, Monoclonal Gammopathy, and Skin Changes (POEMS) syndrome is a rare paraneoplastic disorder caused by plasma cell proliferation and overproduction of cytokines, particularly vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). This complex syndrome affects multiple organ systems and presents with a broad range of clinical and laboratory manifestations, which can complicate both diagnosis and management. Not all components of the acronym are observed in every patient, highlighting the clinical heterogeneity of the condition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHematol Oncol
January 2025
Department of Hematology, Chiba University Hospital, Chiba, Japan.
POEMS syndrome is a multisystemic disease associated with monoclonal plasma cell disorders. Although the presence of bone lesions is included in the diagnostic criteria, their precise manifestations remain unknown. Here, we retrospectively analyzed the bone lesions in patients with POEMS syndrome and evaluated their clinical features.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Med Inform Assoc
January 2025
Kennewick, WA 99338, United States.
Objective: This study evaluates the utility of word embeddings, generated by large language models (LLMs), for medical diagnosis by comparing the semantic proximity of symptoms to their eponymic disease embedding ("eponymic condition") and the mean of all symptom embeddings associated with a disease ("ensemble mean").
Materials And Methods: Symptom data for 5 diagnostically challenging pediatric diseases-CHARGE syndrome, Cowden disease, POEMS syndrome, Rheumatic fever, and Tuberous sclerosis-were collected from PubMed. Using the Ada-002 embedding model, disease names and symptoms were translated into vector representations in a high-dimensional space.
Front Med (Lausanne)
December 2024
Department of Hematology, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
POEMS syndrome is a complex and rare hematological disease involving multiple physiological systems. According to the currently accepted diagnostic criteria for POEMS syndrome, polyneuropathy is one of the primary mandatory criteria. A patient presented with M protein, Castleman disease (CD), elevated vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), extravascular volume overload, and endocrinopathy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Nephrol
December 2024
Department of Nephrology, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, 518000, China.
Background: POEMS syndrome with polyneuropathy, organomegaly, endocrinopathy, M protein, and skin changes is an uncommon plasma cell paraneoplastic syndrome involving multiple system. It is relatively rare in clinical practice, and renal involvement is a usual yet easily overlooked symptom.
Case Presentation: We successfully treated a patient with M protein-negative POEMS syndrome with membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN) findings and thrombotic microangiopathic changes by comparing the level of Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the serum and the changes in polyserositis before and after the patient's treatment.
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