Case Report
Heralding Extramedullary Blast Crisis: Horner’s
Syndrome with Brachial Plexopathy in a Patient with
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia
Sajish Jacob
1
and Sadanand I. Patil
2
1
Memphis Neurology, 1407 Union Avenue, No. 1400, Memphis, TN 38014, USA
2
Baptist Cancer Center, 6029 Walnut Grove Rd, No. 300, Memphis, TN 38120, USA
Correspondence should be addressed to Sajish Jacob; sjacob@memphisneurology.com
Received 18 September 2016; Accepted 1 December 2016
Academic Editor: Tomas R. Chauncey
Copyright © 2016 S. Jacob and S. I. Patil. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) blast crisis is an ominous clinical event that is challenging to treat. Tis can develop at
extramedullary sites rarely and is defned as the infltration of blasts outside the bone marrow irrespective of proliferation of blasts
within the bone marrow. We aim to report an unusual clinical presentation characterized by Horner’s syndrome, ipsilateral arm
weakness, and cervical lymphadenopathy as the frst signs of extramedullary blast crisis in a CML patient. To the best of our
knowledge, the extramedullary locations involving the brachial plexus along with cervicothoracic paraspinal chloroma have not
been previously reported in the literature.
1. Introduction
Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is classifed as a
myeloproliferative neoplasm which usually progresses from
a relatively indolent disease to a more aggressive disorder,
during which time disease control is harder to achieve [1].
In virtually all patients, the disease culminates into an acute
leukemic phase, especially if untreated, termed “blast crisis.”
Blast crisis of CML is an ominous clinical event that can
further be divided based on the site of origin: medullary or
extramedullary [2]. Extramedullary blast crisis is extremely
rare and is defned as the development of extramedullary
blasts infltration irrespective of the proliferation of blasts
in the bone marrow [3]. We report an unusual clinical
presentation heralding blast crisis transformation in a CML
patient, characterized by cervical lymphadenopathy, cervi-
cothoracic paraspinal chloroma with leukemic infltration
of the brachial plexus causing lef Horner’s syndrome, and
ipsilateral symptomatic arm involvement.
2. Case Presentation
A 36-year-old African American male diagnosed with Phil-
adelphia chromosome positive CML two years ago presented
to the emergency room for the second time with a history
of a one-month progressively worsening weakness involving
his lef upper extremity, along with numbness and severe
pain. His symptoms during the previous hospital evaluation
were attributed to musculoskeletal causes afer stroke was
ruled out. Although he was unsure, he was reported by family
members to have developed some facial asymmetry during
this time. He had been noncompliant with his treatment
with dasatinib, being irregular and casual in his approach
to prescribed medication intake, and his primary oncologist
was concerned with CML progression at an accelerated
phase afer having undergone a bone marrow biopsy. He was
meanwhile awaiting the results of a recent cervical lymph
node biopsy.
On neurological examination the patient was noticed
to have lef-sided ptosis, miosis, enophthalmos (Figure 1),
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Case Reports in Medicine
Volume 2016, Article ID 3015947, 5 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/3015947