Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy and cryptococcal meningitis with systemic lupus erythematosus and thymoma

Abstract

A patient with a malignant thymoma developed systemic lupus erythematosus with neurological involvement and multiple infectious complications, including progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy and cryptococcal meningitis. Data from this patient and studies by others are consistent with t h e concept that all cases of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy are associated with a defect i n cellular immunity.Malas D, Weiss S: Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy and cryptococcal meningitis with systemic lupus erythematosus and thymoma.

Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in rheumatic diseases: Evolving clinical and pathologic patterns of disease

“…PML has been described mainly in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). However, other immunosuppressed patient populations, including those with malignancies, organ transplants, and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) and other rheumatic diseases (22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32), are at risk of developing this complication.…”

Is There a Bridge Between Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Thymomas?

“…[9] Hence, we began to doubt the accepted assumptions regarding the connection between immunoregulations and thymomas and SLE. [3][4][5][6][7] Additionally, we reviewed 24 cases in the literature published in English along with our own case, all of which had relatively detailed information about the patients' clinical features (Table 1), [4,5,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] and discovered that most of the patients underwent surgery as the primary treatment for the thymoma, with some combining the surgery with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. The outcome of SLE varied after the treatment with remission in five of the 24 patients, exacerbation in seven others, no reported changes in five more, and SLE occurrence in the other six.…”

Co‐existent cutaneous cryptococcosis of the forearm and cutaneous alternariosis of the leg in patient with metastatic thymoma

“…To our knowledge, there have been no reports of primary cutaneous cryptococcosis in patients treated for thymoma. However, three cases of cryptococcal meningitis associated with thymoma or thymic carcinoma 6–8 and one report of pulmonary cryptococcosis with thymoma 9 were published. Particular immunosuppressive co‐factors found in three of these cases were CD4 + lymphopenia, HTLV‐1 infection and systemic lupus erythematous.…”