Intestinal Localization of Waldenstrom's Disease

Abstract

Since Waldenstrom's¹ original description of macroglobulinemia in 1944, several reports on isolated cases or series have appeared in the literature.^2,8,10-22 Fewer reports have been concerned with autopsied material.⁹ In only two patients has the intestinal involvement been severe enough to cause a prominent diarrhea among the clinical manifestations.^16,22 It is our purpose to report one case of primary macroglobulinemia of Waldenstrom in which small intestine involvement was particularly severe and in which a postmortem examination was performed. Clinical Summary The patient was a 64-year-old white man who came to Roswell Park Memorial Institute 14 months before death with the chief complaint of painless and asymptomatic mass in his left upper abdomen for a period of two months. Thirteen months before death, the patient developed inter- mittent, painless diarrhea with three to four, occasionally abundant, loose, yellow-brown or greenish-brown stools without blood or mucus. Meteorism was present.