Shi XB, Deng WX, Jin FX. Bone marrow metastatic neuroendocrine carcinoma with unknown primary site: A case report and review of the literature. World J Clin Cases 2022; 10(30): 11074-11081 [PMID: 36338238 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i30.11074]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Xue-Bing Shi, MD, Attending Doctor, Department of Medical Oncology, Tongling People’s Hospital, No. 468 Bijiashan Road, Tongguan District, Tongling 244000, Anhui Province, China. sxbtlph@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Oct 26, 2022; 10(30): 11074-11081 Published online Oct 26, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i30.11074
Bone marrow metastatic neuroendocrine carcinoma with unknown primary site: A case report and review of the literature
Xue-Bing Shi, Wen-Xia Deng, Feng-Xiang Jin
Xue-Bing Shi, Wen-Xia Deng, Department of Medical Oncology, Tongling People’s Hospital, Tongling 244000, Anhui Province, China
Feng-Xiang Jin, Department of Hematology, Tongling People’s Hospital, Tongling 244000, Anhui Province, China
Author contributions: Shi XB participated in the treatment of the patient, collecting and analyzing the clinical data, and writing the manuscript; Deng WX contributed to the treatment of the patient, data analysis, and revision of the manuscript; Jin FX was involved in guiding the treatment of the patient and designing the research; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from the patient’s offspring for publication of this case report.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: We have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and this manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xue-Bing Shi, MD, Attending Doctor, Department of Medical Oncology, Tongling People’s Hospital, No. 468 Bijiashan Road, Tongguan District, Tongling 244000, Anhui Province, China. sxbtlph@163.com
Received: June 10, 2022 Peer-review started: June 10, 2022 First decision: June 27, 2022 Revised: July 8, 2022 Accepted: August 23, 2022 Article in press: August 23, 2022 Published online: October 26, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Metastatic neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) of bone marrow is uncommon. Here, we report a case of bone marrow metastatic NEC with an unknown primary site.
CASE SUMMARY
A 73-year-old Chinese woman was admitted to our hospital because marked chest distress and asthma lasting 1 d on March 18, 2018. She was initially diagnosed with pulmonary infection, cardiac insufficiency, thrombocytopenia and severe anemia. Following treatment with antibiotic therapy, diuresis and blood transfusion, the patient’s symptoms greatly improved. After bone marrow examinations, the patient was diagnosed with bone marrow metastatic NEC, bone marrow necrosis (BMN) and secondary myelofibrosis (MF). Further imaging workup did not show the primary tumor, we presumed that the primary site might regress spontaneously or merely be unexplored due to lack of positron emission tomography with gallium peptide. Everolimus (10 mg/d) was added to the treatment and the best supportive and symptomatic therapies were also administered. Unfortunately, the patient’s condition continued to deteriorate and she died on May 15, 2018.
CONCLUSION
Bone marrow invasion of NEC is rare and our patient who suffered from bone marrow metastatic NEC as well as secondary BMN and MF had an extremely poor prognosis. Bone marrow biopsy plays an important role in the diagnosis of solid tumors invading bone marrow.
Core Tip: Neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC) rarely occurs in the bone marrow. We report a patient diagnosed with bone marrow metastatic NEC, bone marrow necrosis and secondary myelofibrosis. As extensive imaging examinations did not show the primary lesion, we speculated that the primary tumor might regress spontaneously or merely not be identified due to lack of positron emission tomography with gallium peptide. Because of the poor general physical condition with an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 3-4, chemotherapy was abandoned, and everolimus as well as the best supportive therapies were given. Unfortunately, the patient’s condition continued to deteriorate and finally passed away.
