Peripheral Neuritis Complicating Multiple Myeloma

IT IS well known that patients with multiple myeloma may suffer mechanical injury to neural structures as a result of compression of these tissues directly, or of their blood supply, by the tumor itself or by the pathologic fractures which it causes. Forty per cent of patients with myeloma1have this complication in the form of lesions of the cord,2lesions of the nerve roots,3compression of the spinal ganglia4or intracranial lesions.5Another type of neural injury, which does not appear to be due to mechanical factors, has received little attention. Whereas Davison and Balser2fwere able to demonstrate pressure on neural structures or their blood supply by the myeloma or fractured vertebrae in most of their cases, the neurologic complications in 1 case could not be accounted for on this basis. In this case there was peripheral neuritis in the upper extremities