Acute cerebral infarction during combination chemotherapy with S-1 cisplatin for a young patient with a mucin-producing adenocarcinoma of the stomach

Abstract

We report a 29-year-old woman with gastric cancer who developed Trousseau's syndrome, a malignancy-related thromboembolism, during chemotherapy. She was diagnosed with a mucin-producing adenocarcinoma of the stomach, and chemotherapy with S-1 and cisplatin was commenced. During treatment, she developed a sudden onset of right hemiplegia. Magnetic resonance imaging showed an acute cerebral infarction of the left cerebral hemisphere. The underlying pathophysiology is thought to be chronic disseminated intravascular coagulation due to mucin-producing adenocarcinomas. However, cisplatin-induced vascular toxicity and hypercoagulability caused by decreased plasma protein C activity, elevated plasma von-Willebrand factor levels, and hypomagnesemia has also been proposed to be associated with thrombogenicity. © 2006 The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine.