Polyarthritis as a prewarning sign of occult lung cancer.
Cancer polyarthritis is an uncommon, paraneoplastic manifestation of some solid and hematological malignancies. Herein, we report the case of a 55-year-old woman who recently experienced polyarthritis for 2 months. On admission, the patient developed cough, expectoration, and fever. According to the clinical manifestations and the findings in radiological examinations and sputum cultures, pneumonia was considered. No evidence of lung cancer was noted by repeated computed tomography scan of lung, single bronchoscopy, or computed tomography-guided lung biopsy. Ultimately, the second bronchoscopy with biopsy was carried out, and lung adenocarcinoma was confirmed by pathological examination. Symptoms of polyarthritis starting 2 months before the symptoms of her lung cancer in the present case leads us to believe that polyarthritis may be a manifestation of paraneoplastic syndrome. Arthritis resolved after anticancer therapy. Our report indicates that polyarthritis of unknown cause may be suspected as a manifestation of malignancies.
Department of General Practice, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Yong-Mei
YM
Han
Li-Zheng
LZ
Fang
Xin-Hua
XH
Zhang
Shi-Hai
SH
Yuan
Jian-Hua
JH
Chen
You-Ming
YM
Li
D001168:Arthritis / Q000150:complications*; D001999:Bronchoscopy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009382:Neoplasms, Unknown Primary / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D013902:Radiography, Thoracic; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed