[Niki]

Lung abscess after stem cell transplant

by Niki on Tue Jan 07, 2014 4:46 pm

Dear friends,

After the stem cell transplant that I had on March 2013, I developed a lung abscess of 8.2 cm. The diameter of it is decreasing steadily and slowly. Now is about 3 cm. Did someone had a similar experience? I am going to proceed to a second transplant very soon, and I was thinking if it wouldn't be wise to proceed to a surgery in order not to have some complications due to it during the transplant but my doctor feels comfortable. Some iv immunoglobulin couldn't help my immunity fight with the infection?

Best regards and good luck everybody,

Niki

[JimNY]

Re: Lung abscess after stem cell transplant

by JimNY on Wed Jan 08, 2014 1:13 pm

Hi Niki,

Sorry to hear about your lung abscess.

Do your doctors know the cause of the abscess? Is it by any chance a extramedullary plasmacytoma, which would be a myeloma tumor outside the bones? Or is its cause unknown?

From the Wikipedia article on lung abscesses,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_abscess

it appears they can be caused by pneumonia, which is not unusual among myeloma patients who have undergone stem cell transplantation.

The abscesses also can be cause by "Aspiration of oropharyngeal or gastric secretion" which, I believe, is a fancy medical way of saying "vomit getting into the lungs."

I'm afraid I can't offer any advice about whether or not it would be a good idea for you to have the abscess removed before your second stem cell transplant. However, if your doctors are comfortable that it will be okay, I would tend to trust their opinion.

Best of luck to you.