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Case Reports
. 2016 May 10;8(2):6417.
doi: 10.4081/hr.2016.6417.

Recurrent Syncope and Cardiac Arrest in a Patient with Systemic Light Chain Amyloidosis Treated with Bortezomib

Navin Jaipaul  1 , Alexander Pi  2 , Zhiwei Zhang  1
Affiliations
Case Reports

Recurrent Syncope and Cardiac Arrest in a Patient with Systemic Light Chain Amyloidosis Treated with Bortezomib

Navin Jaipaul et al. Hematol Rep. .

Abstract

About 10-15% of patients with multiple myeloma develop light chain (AL) amyloidosis. AL amyloidosis is a systemic disease that may involve multiple organs, often including the heart. It may present clinically with bradyarrhythmia and syncope. The proteasome inhibitor bortezomib has been used with clinical efficacy in treating patients with AL amyloidosis but also implicated as a possible cause of cardiomyocyte injury. We report a case of a 48-year-old man with AL amyloidosis and increased frequency of syncope and cardiac arrest after starting bortezomib. The biologic and clinical plausibility of a heightened risk for cardiac arrest in patients with cardiac AL amyloidosis and history of syncope being treated with bortezomib is a possibility that is not well documented in the medical literature and warrants further investigation.

Keywords: Light chain amyloidosis; bortezomib; cardiac arrest; syncope.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: the authors declare no potential conflict of interest.

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