a Heavy Chain Disease

Abstract

The Mediterranean type of abdominal lymphoma has recently been described as a separate disease entity by Ramot et al,¹ Eidelman et al,² and Seijffers et al.³ The disease affects mainly young people of Mediterranean origin and is characterized by severe diarrhea accompanied by abdominal pain, hypocalcemia, and malabsorption. Proteinuria is present in some cases. Analysis of the proteins in the serum and the urine in one of these cases led Seligmann et al^4,5 to the discovery of a heavy chain disease. To the best of our knowledge, only seven patients with this disease have been reported up to 1969.^4-9 This is a report of an additional case in which the abnormal protein disappeared from the serum during a remission induced by cyclophosphamide and prednisone. Patient Summary A 20-year-old Jewish man, born in Iraq but living in Israel since the age of 2 years, was