[MarianRose]

Did my husband have multiple myeloma or amyloidosis?

by MarianRose on Tue Jan 19, 2016 10:11 pm

My husband passed away last month. He had bladder cancer 25 years ago and was considered cured. He collapsed in 2006 and had a quadruple bypass and defibrillator and pacemaker inserted. At that time, we found out that he only had one kidney and don't know whether he only had one from birth or why he only had one. A month before he died, he passed out and we were told his heart rate went to 231 and his defibrillator kicked in. He had a leaking heart valve, which is what I was told was cause of death. He had a bone marrow test before he died, but we were never told results because he passed away prior to getting results.

For about a year, he would sometimes wake up with bruising under his eyes. I got some records from hospital reports which show the following: Results for lambda were 966.8 and kappa 23. Hospital clinical diagnosis shows active bladder cancer, bleeding hemorrhoids, elevated troponin, GI bleed, hyponatremia, lung nodule, solitary, nausea,, abnormality of red blood cells R71.8 (ICD-10-CM), pyloric channel ulcer, atrial fibrillation, acute congestive heart failure, acute-on-chronic renal failure, acute respiratory distress, anemia unspecified, and anemia due to gastrointestinal blood loss, atrophic kidney, bilateral pleural effusion, shortness of breath. XR bone survey showed proximal humeri demonstrate some subtle lucent areas bilaterally, equivocal for myeloma. Impression: subtle areas of lucency involving each proximal humerus, the distal femoral metaphysis bilaterally and the proximal fibulae shaft bilaterally of indeterminate significance. This could potentially represent subtle radiographic evidence of small lyric lesions in the setting of multiple myeloma. Lambda clonal plasma cells greater than 1%. Decreased T cells with increased CD4:CD8 ratio.

This is all Greek to me and I would like to know if he had myeloma or amyloidosis. Can anyone help me figure it out from this information?

[Multibilly]

Re: Did my husband have multiple myeloma or amyloidosis?

by Multibilly on Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:27 am

Hi Marian,

I'm so sorry to hear of your husband's passing.

While the bruising under the eyes (a telltale symptom of amyloidosis), high lambda number, cardiac issues (a potential complication of amyloidosis) and lytic lesions could suggest amyloidosis, one really can't tell if a patient has amyloidosis or multiple myeloma without a section of the bone marrow biopsy test known as the "Congo red test" that tests specifically for amyloidosis. Alternatively, one could test for amyloidosis via a biopsy of an organ or section of fat.

It is also possible that a patient can have both multiple myeloma and amyloidosis since it is not uncommon for a person with multiple myeloma to develop amyloidosis - but again, one would need to have all the results of a bone marrow biopsy test to help confirm a diagnosis of multiple myeloma and/or amyloidosis