[Acute lung injury in a patient with concurrent diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and myelodysplastic syndrome]

A 67-year-old man developed a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and was simultaneously diagnosed as myelodysplastic syndrome(refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia). Acute lung injury was complicated after the 6th course of rituximab injection, but was recovered by steroid pulse therapy. At that moment, marked leucocytosis was prominent due to the disease progression of myelodysplastic syndrome. Two months later, he relapsed into lymphoma systematically. During salvage chemotherapy without rituximab, the patient deteriorated into lethal respiratory failure. Autopsy findings revealed the diffuse alveolar damage with microscopic evidence of an adenovirus infection. His bone marrow showed the transformation of myelodysplastic syndrome into acute myeloid leukemia. The coincidence of myeloproliferative and lymphoproliferative diseases in the same patient is a rare phenomenon. We should be cautious when acute lung injury occurs during such a condition.