Abstract
Pulmonary tumor thrombotic microangiopathy (PTTM) is a fatal disease process in
which pulmonary hypertension (PH) develops in the setting of malignancy. The
purpose of this study is to present a detailed analysis of cases of PTTM
reported in literature in the hopes of achieving more ante-mortem diagnoses. We
conducted a systematic review of currently published and available cases of PTTM
by searching the term “pulmonary tumor thrombotic microangiopathy” on the
Pubmed.gov database. Seventy-nine publications were included consisting of 160
unique cases of PTTM. The most commonly reported malignancy was gastric
adenocarcinoma (94 cases, 59%). Cough and dyspnea were reported in 61 (85%) and
102 (94%) cases, respectively. Hypoxemia was reported in 96 cases (95%).
Elevation in D-dimer was noted in 36 cases (95%), presence of anemia in 32 cases
(84%), and thrombocytopenia in 30 cases (77%). Common findings on chest computed
tomography (CT) included ground-glass opacities (GGO) in 28 cases (82%) and
nodules in 24 cases (86%). PH on echocardiography was noted in 59 cases (89%)
with an average right ventricular systolic pressure of 71 mmHg. Common features
of PTTM that are reported across the published literature include presence of
dyspnea and cough, hypoxemia, with abnormal CT findings of GGO, nodules, and
mediastinal/hilar lymphadenopathy, and PH. PTTM is a universally fatal disease
process and this analysis provides a detailed examination of all the available
published data that may help clinicians establish an earlier diagnosis of
PTTM.
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