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Introduction

Paraneoplastic vasculitis is a rare condition that has not been frequently described mainly because of the difficulty to establish a causal relationship between cancer and vasculitis [1]. They account for 2 to 5% of all vasculitides [1]. They predominantly affect small and medium vessels, the most common vasculitis being leukocytoclastic vasculitis, and seem to be more often related to hematologic neoplasms with a proven association between hairy cell leukemia and polyarteritis nodosa [1,2]. Nonetheless, there have been a few articles reporting associations between large vessels vasculitis and hematologic cancers such as chronic myeloid leukemia [3,4], chronic myelomonocytic leukemia [5] and myelodysplastic syndrome [6] and there was one case report of an aortitis as a paraneoplastic syndrome of a colon adenocarcinoma [7]. Response to treatment appears to be very inconsistent with some patients showing a rapid response to steroid therapy and others relapsing [5,6], some never showing any improvement in the first place and needing specific treatment of the underlying malignancy [7]. In our case, the patient was not showing much response to steroid therapy either, but after initiating chemotherapy, C-reactive protein started declining, going from 102 mg/L to 19 mg/L in a month and dwindling to 5.8 mg/L the following month, which gave weight to the diagnosis of paraneoplastic vasculitis.

Consent

Consent was obtained from the patient.

Author Contributorship

Here you will find the contributions of all co-authors: Isaac Kargar Samani (1,2), Bruno Krug (1,2), Anne-Sophie Pirson (2) and Thierry Vander Borght (1,2). They are based on the following criteria published in the guide for authors:  drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content (1) and final approval of the version to be submitted (2).

Conflict of Interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.