Some patients with immunoglobulin paraproteinemic neuropathy have intra-nerve deposits that morphologically mimick amyloid, but do no stain with Congo red. Patients with amyloid-like deposits were identified. The nerve amyloid-like aggregates were studied by laser microdissection and dual mass spectrometry. Three male patients, all with IgM gammopathy, and neuropathy were identified. Follow-up, disease duration was 5, 19, and 7 years, respectively. All had progressive asymmetric sensory-onset distal axonal polyneuropathy with late motor involvement. Autonomic symptoms occurred in only one after 13 years of symptoms. None had clinical cardio-renal involvement. One had skin papules with dermal amyloid-like deposits. Endoneurial amyloid-like deposits had granulo-fibrillar ultrastructure. Mass spectrometry of laser-dissected deposits identified IgM pentameric macroglobulin (heavy, light, and joining chains) without amyloid-associated proteins including absent apolipoprotein E and serum amyloid P-component. Amyloid-like neuropathy has distinct clinical, pathologic, and proteomic features which expand the spectrum of IgM neuropathies. Patients have favorable survival, relative absence of autonomic features, and distinct proteomic profiles of the infiltrative protein in nerve.
© 2012 Peripheral Nerve Society.