Ann Rehabil Med.  2012 Oct;36(5):739-743.

Atypical Thoracic Solitary Plasmacytoma

• Kim DH
• Yoo SD
• Kim SM
• Im SJ
• Hong DW

Abstract

Plasmacytoma is a rare disease, which afflicts 2 to 3 people per every 100,000 of the general population. Solitary plasmacytoma accounts for 5% of the plasma cell neoplasm. Solitary plasmacytoma of the bone appears more vividly in the axial skeleton (25-60%), which has the red marrow and usually affects the thoracic vertebrae. We report a case of 54-year-old man who has a chest pain on the right side. After being treated for the muscle pain, his symptoms of pain were changed into weakness and allesthesia. We checked the MRI and found a mass lesion in the T5 vertebra, but there were no significant laboratory findings, in blood and urine samples. Finally, he got an operation due to the aggravation of the weakness. The result of biopsy indicated that it was a solitary plasmacytoma of the spine. After 5 months later, the weakness and allesthesia had disappeared.

Keyword

Atypical plasmacytoma; Solitary spinal tumor

MeSH Terms

Biopsy
Bone Marrow
Chest Pain
Humans
Middle Aged
Muscles
Neoplasms, Plasma Cell
Plasmacytoma
Rare Diseases
Skeleton
Spine
Thoracic Vertebrae

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Anteroposterior (A) and lateral (B) x-rays in thoracic spine show non-specific findings.

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  Fig. 2 T2 weighted MRIs show low signal changes like bone mass in sagittal view (A) and transverse view (B). These mass lesions show homogenous densities and slightly destructed cortex, red arrow: suspected mass lesions.

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  Fig. 3 It shows diffuse sheets of plasma cells (A). It shows diffuse cytoplasmic staining of kappa light chain (B) and negative reaction to lambda (C). These three histologic findings suggest plasmacytoma. (A) H&E (×400) (B, C) Immunohistochemistry stain (×400).

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