Cutaneous vasculitis as a paraneoplastic syndrome in childhood.

INTRODUCTION

In children, vasculitis as a paraneoplastic syndrome has never been reported before. In this work we report a vasculitis syndrome as a neoplasm onset manifestation in a child and we discuss our case regarding the data from literature.

CASE REPORT: A 7-year-old girl presented with hand and foot ulceration, fixed cyanosis and pallor. During investigation, a central nervous system (CNS) rhabdomyosarcoma with metastasis on multiple sites was diagnosed.

DISCUSSION: Rhabdomyosarcomas represent 5 to 8% of child neoplasms, although the CNS seldom is the primary site. In the indexed English language literature there were no published cases of vasculitis associated with rhabdomyosarcoma as a paraneoplastic syndrome in childhood, which suggests that the described report is the first being published. Awareness of this possible coexistence could allow to an earlier diagnosis of neoplasms expressed by vasculitis, leading to an earlier treatment and a longer survival.