Abstract
We report on a 58-year-old Caucasian woman who went to a general practitioner about recurrent abdominal pain, night sweats and weight loss of a few weeks’ duration. Once gynaecological disease had been ruled out, the patient was admitted to hospital with severe abdominal pain and intestinal obstruction and a right-sided hemicolectomy was performed. Following the investigation of osteolytic lumbar vertebrae, 18 months after visiting the general practitioner the patient was finally found to be suffering from generalized AA-amyloidosis secondary to gastrointestinal tuberculosis. This had been misinterpreted as Crohn’s disease. Re-examination of the specimens from the right-sided hemicolectomy demonstrated that scanty deposits of AA-amyloid were present 9 months after the first presentation. AA-amyloid can thus be present in serious inflammatory disease even during the first 9 months after the initial clinical presentation.
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Received: 23 June 1998 / Accepted: 19 August 1998
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Röcken, C., Radun, D., Glasbrenner, B. et al. Generalized AA-amyloidosis in a 58-year-old Caucasian woman with an 18-month history of gastrointestinal tuberculosis. Virchows Archiv 434, 95–100 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/s004280050311
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s004280050311