Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia with Lytic Osseous Lesions and Plasma-cell Morphology: Report of a Case

Abstract

A 44-year-old man had Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, diagnosed on the basis of serum protein studies. A predominantly plasmacytic bone-marrow morphology and significant osseous lesions were present. This case and others in the literature indicate that osseous lesions are not uncommon in Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, that occasional patients with this disease have proliferation mainly of plasma cells, and that a plasma-cell morphology is usually associated with the development of osteolytic lesions. Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia and multiple myeloma may merely be opposite ends of the same disease spectrum, with intermediate forms, such as the case in point, occurring.