Multiple myeloma in renal transplant recipients

Severe renal failure (RF) may be the first and only clinical manifestation of multiple myeloma (MM). Occasionally the disease remains long unrecognized and the patients receive renal function replacement therapy, including renal transplantation (RT). To treat MM in renal transplant recipients is a complex medical and ethical problem. The paper presents the authors' experience in treating 3 patients with MM diagnosed after RT and evolving transplant lesion. Various morphological types of grafted kidney lesion were detected. These included fibrillar glomerulonephritis, cast nephropathy, and the latter concurrent with light-chain deposition disease. RF most rapidly progressed in cast nephropathy. The natural history of the disease was unfavorable in all patients; VAD and PAD chemotherapy programs proved to be ineffective. It is concluded that RT should not be performed in patients with extended-stage MM due to the fact that there is a considerable risk for renal transplant lesion and severe infectious complications that may occur during chemotherapy. Blood and urine immunochemical studies should be conducted in all the patients who are to undergo RT.

multiple myeloma, myelomic nephropathy, renal failure, renal transplantation, biopsy