A 45-year-old man with polyclonal hypergammaglobulinemia (gamma globulins, 102 g/L) had a serum relative viscosity of 13 nu but did not manifest clinical signs of hyperviscosity syndrome (e.g., retinopathy, bleeding diathesis, and neurological alterations), except for fatigue and anorexia. In contrast with other patients with polyclonal hyperviscosity reported so far, this patient did not have ...

The association between hypergammaglobulinaemia and raised serum viscosity has been recognised for more than 40 years. Waldenstrom (1944) described three patients in whom macroglobulinaemia was associated with increased serum viscosity, and even earlier than this there had been reports of raised plasma viscosity in myelomatosis (Albers, 1937). Since these early reports many of the clinical feat...

OBJECTIVE To test the hypothesis that blood hyperviscosity could account for the controversial results observed during electrophysiological evaluation of the brain stem in sleep apnea syndrome. METHODS This was a prospective study of a sample of patients with sleep apnea who were participating in a stroke prevention evaluation. Participants were 610 male patients with obstructive sleep apnea,...

Therapeutic plasma exchange is an extra-corporeal technique able to remove from blood macromolecules and/or replace deficient plasma factors. It is the treatment of choice in hyperviscosity syndrome, due to the presence of quantitatively or qualitatively abnormal plasma proteins such as paraproteins. In spite of a general consensus on the indications to therapeutic plasma exchange in hypervisco...

The association between hypergammaglobulinaemia and raised serum viscosity has been recognised for more than 40 years. Waldenstrom (1944) described three patients in whom macroglobulinaemia was associated with increased serum viscosity, and even earlier than this there had been reports of raised plasma viscosity in myelomatosis (Albers, 1937). Since these early reports many of the clinical feat...

A.W., a 50-year-old woman with a sixmonth history of frequent nosebleeds, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Before A.W. could meet with an oncologist, she presented to the emergency room with an uncontrollable nosebleed and spontaneous bleeding in her gums. Her menstrual period, which usually occurs over five or six days, lasted 10 with unusually heavy flow. A.W. also reported prolonged blee...

W aldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia is a syndrome characterized by an IgM globulin in the blood, an infiltration of plasmacytoid lymphocytes in the bone marrow, lymph nodes and other tissues and variable symptoms related to serum hyperviscosity, hemostatic defects and tissue replacem ent by tumor cells. It is a disease of the older patient and commonly has a prolonged course. The median age at ons...

Polyclonal hyperviscosity syndrome (HVS) is rare and has been reported in various disorders of immune dysregulation and lymphoid hyperplasia. IgG4-Related Disease (IgG4-RD) is an emerging disorder often associated with exuberant hypergammaglobulinemia, and this review of seven cases establishes IgG4-RD as an important cause of polyclonal HVS.