Rheumatic polymyalgia on the background of prostate adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Paraneoplastic syndromes diagnosed in 7–10% of patients with malignancies in general. PNS accompany bronchogenic lung, breast, ovarian, prostate, kidney and uterus cancers most often. Neoplastic process can cause by both the acute and the chronic inflammatory response with pathologic changes of the connective tissues and vascular in various organs and systems. Diagnosis of paraneoplastic syndromes is difficult often. However, some signs should cause of rheumatologist the oncologic alertness, which were found in patients with rheumatic masks of neoplasms. Among such signs include: the occurrence of rheumatic diseases in an abnormal age; the absence of sexual dimorphism, is typical of many rheumatic diseases; the difference between the severity of clinical manifestations and the general condition of the patient with an index of inflammatory activity; the absence of separate clinical and laboratory signs typical one or another rheumatic disease; the appearance of new symptoms, not characteristic of the rheumatic diseases. As a clinical example to illustrate the difficulty of diagnosis, this article describes a clinical case of adenocarcinoma of the prostate in 74-year-old men presenting as polymyalgia rheumatica.