Polyneuropathy with vagus and phrenic nerve involvement in breast cancer. Report of a case with spontaneous remission

A. Handforth, S. Nag and D. M. Robertson

Dysphagia, respiratory insufficiency, and bilateral vocal cord paralysis developed in a 70-year-old woman seven years after resection of a breast carcinoma. There was spontaneous partial remission of symptoms before death, in the absence of treatment. Necropsy showed both inflammatory and metastatic infiltrates of vagus nerves, with demyelination out of proportion to axonal loss. Spontaneous resolution of metastases-evoked inflammation within vagus and phrenic nerves may have been the basis of clinical remission.