[Tetraplegia and respiratory failure due to carcinomatous neuropathy in the early postoperative period of a lung cancer patient: report of a case].

A 63-year-old man, with atypical pulmonary mycobacteriosis and also with hepatic dysfunction due to chronic hepatitis C, underwent wedge resection of the right lower lobe for non-small cell lung cancer. On the 9th postoperative day, the patient developed acute tetraplegia and then respiratory failure. Neither computed tomography (CT) nor magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain and cervical vertebrae showed any cancer metastases. The neurological symptoms were those of Guillain-Barre syndrome. Therefore, we speculate that the cause of the neuromyopathy might be autoimmune antibodies from lung cancer. Steroid pulse therapy and plasma exchange treatment were effective and the patient's symptoms disappeared in a month. We reported the extremely rare case of a lung cancer patient with acute tetraplegia in the early postoperative period.