PRIMARY AMYLOIDOSIS OF THE LIVER

For 2 years a 72-year-old man had suffered from nonspecific upper abdominal discomfort and hepatomegaly. The gamma-glutamate transaminase concentration was increased to 121 U/l, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate was 80 mm in the first hour. Histological examination of tissue from the enlarged liver (22 cm in the midclavicular line) revealed the diagnosis of amyloidosis. The gastric mucosa, duodenum and rectum were not involved. Two years later ascites developed; six months after this he was again hospitalized in hepatic coma. Now, for the first time, a type IgA-lambda paraprotein was demonstrated by serum immuno-electrophoresis. The patient died of slowly progressing anicteric liver failure after having been ill for a total of 4 1/2 years. At autopsy there were extensive amyloid deposits throughout the liver and spleen so that the structure of these organs was hardly recognizable. The amyloid deposits in the liver were restricted to the glomerular region, while there was no amyloid in the heart. Histochemical tests showed that the deposits were strongly positive to the anti-lambda antibody. This was thus a case of primary (AL-lambda) amyloidosis of the liver and spleen which had taken an unusually prolonged course, because the heart was not involved at all and the kidneys only slightly.