Sonographic signs of amyloidosis.

INTRODUCTION: Amyloidosis is a rare group of diseases with a variety of symptoms that occurs not only in multimorbid elderly but also in young patients. However, sonographic signs of amyloidosis have not been described so far.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: 30 patients with different forms of amyloidosis (19 patients with TTR-amyloidosis (familial amyloid Polyneuropathy [FAP]), 11 patients with other forms of systemic amyloidosis) were sonographically evaluated in a standardised fashion. In all patients amyloidosis was histologically verified.

RESULTS: Typical signs of cardiac amyloidosis were myocardial thickness, pericardial effusion, pleural effusion and typical echorich subendocardial depositions. Signs of kidney infiltration were stage dependent and rather unspecific. Spontaneous subcapsular haemorrhages were the typical signs of liver and spleen infiltration. Intestinal affection was characterised by patchy-like inhomogeneous depositions. Rare sites of amyloidal affection could also be verified, e. g. gallbladder and thyroid infiltration.

DISCUSSION: Typical sonographic signs of amyloidosis could be found in the heart, bowel wall, liver, spleen, gallbladder and thyroid and were illustrated as pictorial assays.