Rheumatic manifestations as initial presentation of malignancy: A case series from a tertiary care center in India

Malignant neoplasms can be associated with a wide variety of rheumatological manifestations that may be caused by direct tumor invasion into bones and joints, as a paraneoplastic syndrome, and through altered immune surveillance. To identify the relationship between rheumatic manifestations in various malignancies.

Twenty patients with various malignancies presenting with rheumatic conditions in our tertiary medical care were studied retrospectively from case records at the Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences from 2013 to 2018.

In the present study, total of 20 patients including 12 males and 8 females with mean age at diagnosis of was 46.3±22.2 years with various malignancy associated rheumatic diseases were included. In total 20% of patients with were current smokers. Seven (35%) had hematological malignancies whereas 13 (65%) had solid malignancies. Most common presenting feature was arthritis (40%), followed by weight loss (20%), skin rash (10%), fever (15%) and muscle weakness (10%) at the time of diagnosis. All of them developed malignancy within 24 months of diagnosis. Among the autoantibodies, only 6 patients (30%) were positive for both ANA (n= 4, 20%) and RF (n=2, 10%), other antibodies were negative. The patients in the hematological malignancies had significantly higher serum levels of LDH, Mean±SD U/L compared to solid malignancy group (716.8±169.6 vs. 249.9±161.6, p<0.001).

In our cohort, all the patients developed malignancies within 2 years of diagnosis of rheumatic condition. Higher serum LDH levels helpful to differentiates between hematological and solid malignancies. Hence early detection of malignancy is of major importance in these patients.