A Rare Case of Plasma Cell Leukemia Presenting as Dyspnea

A 74-year-old man presented to the ED with acute chronic exertional dyspnea of 5-day duration. As part of his previous evaluation, 5 months earlier, he had undergone cardiopulmonary stress testing, routine laboratory evaluation, and chest radiography that were unremarkable. Over the subsequent months, he had waxing and waning exercise capacity until his incident hospitalization; the exercise was limited to < 40 meters. He reported associated nonproductive cough, 15-pound unintentional weight loss over the past 5 months, night sweats, easy fatigability, and early satiety. A chest radiograph was performed that showed a left hilar, mass-like consolidation with loss of the left heart border that was associated left-sided pleural effusion and left lower lung zone consolidation. On physical examination, he was afebrile and normotensive with a sinus tachycardia of 125 beats per minute. He was noted to be tachypneic with a respiratory rate of 24 breaths per minute and saturation of 95% on room air. Examination of the chest showed diminished breath sounds over left lower lung fields with scattered end expiratory wheezing.