PLASMACYTOMA OF UPPER RESPIRATORY TRACT AND ORAL CAVITY

Abstract

PLASMACYTOMA is a term used indiscriminately for plasma-cell accumulations, inflammatory as well as neoplastic in nature and benign as well as malignant in character.²⁶Multiple myeloma is the most frequent of the plasmacytoid tumors. The problem of multiple myeloma is so intimately related to solitary plasmacytoma that some consideration of this interrelationship is necessary before proceeding to the more limited subject of solitary plasmacytoma of the upper respiratory tract and oral cavity. Multiple myeloma is recognized as a frequent and rapidly fatal disease of bone originating in the medulla, or bone marrow, that is active in hemopoiesis.²³One school of thought, however, considers it as an intrinsic disease of the blood-forming structures generally. The disease is characterized by multiple osteolytic foci in the involved bones. These foci are composed of plasma-cell masses. Multiple myeloma is, as a rule, so rapidly progressive that death ensues within two years. In