Case Report Malignant olecranon bursitis in the setting of multiple myeloma relapse Maxwell M Krem, MD, PhD,a Samer Z Al-Quran, MD,b Craig L Silverman, MD,c Vallejo Miller, RN,a and William Tse, MD, FACPa aDivision of Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Department of Medicine, and Departments of bPathology and cRadiation Oncology, at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, Kentucky ultiple myeloma is the most common Case presentation and summary plasma cell neoplasm, with an esti- A 46-year-old man with a longstanding history mated 24,000 cases occurring annu- of multiple myeloma developed swelling of the Mally. 1 Symptomatic multiple myeloma most com- left elbow that was initially painless in September monly presents with one or more of the cardinal 2016. He had been diagnosed with IgA kappa mul- CRAB phenomena of hypercalcemia, renal dys- tiple myeloma and AL deposition in 2011. Over the function, anemia, or lytic bone lesions.2 Less com- course of his disease, he was treated with the follow- monly, patients may present with plasmacytomas ing sequence of therapies: cyclophosphamide, bort- (focal lesions of malignant plasma cells), which may ezomib, and dexamethasone, followed by melphalan- involve bony or soft tissues.1 conditioned autologous peripheral blood stem cell Plasma cell neoplasms occasionally involve the joints, transplant; lenalidomide and dexamethasone; car lzo- including the elbows, typically as plasmacytomas. e mib and dexamethasone; pomalidomide, bortezomib, elbow is an unusual but reported location of plasma- and dexamethasone; and bortezomib, lenalidomide, cytomas.3,4 A case of multiple myeloma and amyloid dexamethasone, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and light-chain (AL) amyloidosis has been reported, with etoposide, followed by second melphalan-conditioned manifestations including pseudomyopathy, bone mar- autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplant. In row plasmacytosis, and bilateral trochanteric bursitis.5 addition to treatment with numerous novel and che- Bursitis is de ned as inammation of the syno- motherapeutic agents, his disease course was notable vial-uid–containing sacs that lubricate joints. e for amyloid deposition in the liver, bone marrow, and olecranon bursa is commonly aected. Etiologies kidneys, which resulted in dialysis dependence. include infection, inammatory disease, trauma, After the second autologous transplant, he achieved and malignancy. Furthermore, there is an associa- a very good partial response and experienced about 9 tion between bursitis and immunosuppression.6,7 months of remission, after which laboratory evalua- e most common modes of therapy used to treat tion indicated recurrence of IgA kappa monoclonal bursitis are nonsteroidal anti-inammatory drugs, protein and free kappa light-chains, which increased corticosteroid injections, and surgical management. slowly over several months without focal symptoms, Trochanteric bursitis has been attributed to multi- cytopenias, or decline in organ function (Figure 1). ple myeloma in one previous case report, but we are Twelve months after his second transplant, he pre- not aware of any previous cases of olecranon bursitis sented in September 2016 with 4 weeks of left elbow caused by multiple myeloma. Here, we present the swelling, with the appearance suggesting a uid col- case of a 46-year-old man with heavily pretreated lection over the left olecranon process (Figure 2). e multiple myeloma and amyloidosis who developed uid collection was not painful unless bumped or left olecranon bursitis contemporaneously with dis- pushed. e maximum pain level was 1-2 on a scale ease relapse; ow cytometric analysis of the bursal of 0-10. His daughter drained the uid collection on uid demonstrated an abnormal plasma cell popula- 2 occasions, but it reaccumulated over 2 to 3 days. tion, establishing the etiology. He reported no fevers, chills, or sweats. He did not Accepted for publication June 14, 2018. Correspondence: Maxwell M Krem, MD, PhD; [email protected]. Disclosures: The authors report no disclosures or conicts of interest. JCSO 2018;16(4):e202-e205. ©2018 Frontline Medical Communications. doi: https://doi.org/10.12788/jcso.0393 e202 THE JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY AND SUPPORTIVE ONCOLOGY g July-August 2018 www.jcso-online.com Krem et al have any redness at the site. He did not report any systemic symptoms. Physical examination of the left elbow demonstrated a bal- lotable uid collection associated with the olecranon, with no associated warmth, tenderness, or erythema. Bursal uid was sampled, yielding orange-colored serous uid with bland characteristics (Figure 3). Microbiologic studies were nega- tive (Table 1). We did not suspect a malignant cause initially. e uid collection persisted despite treatment with non- steroidal anti-inammatory drugs and serial drainage proce- dures approximately twice per week. It became more erythem- atous and uncomfortable. We repeated diagnostic sampling at 13 months post-transplant. Cytospin revealed scant plasma cells. A multiparametric 8-color ow cytometric analysis was performed on the bursal uid. It demonstrated the pres- ence of a small abnormal population of plasma cells (0.04%). FIGURE 1 Time course of multiple myeloma recurrence and emergence of synovial uid collection. e abnormal plasma cells showed expression of CD138 and bright CD38 with aberrant expression of CD56, dim CD45, and loss of CD19, CD81 and CD27. ey did not express CD117 or CD20 (Figure 4). Because of the patient’s discomfort and his history of multidrug-refractory multiple myeloma, we obtained computed tomography imaging of the axial and appen- dicular skeleton, which demonstrated diuse small lytic lesions, none larger than 3 mm, including the left elbow joint. e patient began systemic treatment with ixazomib, pomalidomide, and dexamethasone and then received radi- ation therapy of 20 Gy in 4 fractions to the left olecranon area. e bursal uid collection remained stable in size but required periodic, though less frequent, drainage proce- dures. Unfortunately, the patient only tolerated 2 cycles of systemic therapy before experiencing hypercalcemia, exac- erbation of hepatic amyloidosis, and a decline in perfor- FIGURE 2 Left elbow with ballotable uid collection. mance status. He died 17 months after the transplant. Discussion Our patient experienced left olecranon bursitis simultane- ously with relapse of multiple myeloma and AL amyloido- sis. Evaluation for infectious causes was negative, and the bursal uid did not have strongly inammatory character- istics. Furthermore, a small plasma cell population was iso- lated from the uid. Imaging did not reveal an underlying dominant lytic lesion. Although we do not have direct patho- logic con rmation, the clinical scenario and ow cytometry ndings support our interpretation that the patient’s bursi- tis was caused by or at least related to underlying multiple myeloma. While reactive plasma cells are also CD38 posi- tive and CD138 positive, they maintain the expression of CD19 and CD45 without aberrant expression of CD56 or CD117 and do not show loss of expression of CD81 or CD27. In this situation, we suspect that either a plasmacy- toma involving the soft tissue of the bursa or amyloid in l- tration of the synovium may have occurred. Anti-myeloma FIGURE 3 Left olecranon synovial uid after centrifugation. therapies and radiation therapy did not result in control of the Volume 16/Number 4 July-August 2018 g THE JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY AND SUPPORTIVE ONCOLOGY e203 Case Report bursitis, though it should be noted that the patient’s highly TABLE 1 Left olecranon synovial uid characteristics refractory disease progressed despite treatment with a com- Synovial uid parameter bination of later-generation immunomodulatory imide and (normal value) Characteristic/value proteasome inhibitor therapies. Color (colorless) Red Cases of malignant bursitis have been reported several times Appearance (clear) Cloudy in the literature, though nearly all of the instances involved Total nucleated cells (0-150/mm3) 778/mm3 connective tissue or metastatic tumors. Tumor histologies include osteochondroma,8,9 malignant brous histiocytoma,10 Total red blood cells (0-1,000/mm3) 255,800/mm3 synovial sarcoma,11 and metastatic breast cancer.12 Neutrophils (0%-25%) 36% Hematologic malignancies are more rare causes of bursi- Absolute neutrophil count (0-40/mm3) 280/mm3 tis; our literature search identi ed a report of 2 cases of non- Lymphocytes (0%-20%) 32% Hodgkin lymphoma mimicking rheumatoid arthritis. e Monocytes/macrophages (0%-70%) 30% joints were the knee and elbow. Synovial uid from one case was clear and yellow, with leukocytosis with a neutrophilic Eosinophils (0%-2%) 2% predominance (similar to our case). In both cases, pathol- Gram stain (no organisms) White blood cells, no ogy con rmed lymphomatous in ltration of the synovium.13 organisms Notably, we identi ed a case of a previously healthy 35-year- Culture (up to 48 h) No growth at 48 h old woman with bilateral trochanteric bursitis. Biopsy of tis- sue from the right trochanteric bursa demonstrated positive birefringence, diagnostic of AL amyloidosis. e patient also had a biclonal paraprotein accompanied by calvarial lytic lesions. She was treated with a corticosteroid pulse and bisphosphonates, followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant. 5 Our case shares features with the above case, including the relatively young age of the patient and the presence of AL amyloidosis. Our