Achalasia in a patient with multiple myeloma: a case report

Achalasia is a medical condition presenting with dysphagia to both liquids and solids. Although it is usually a primary disease, there are cases in which achalasia occurs secondary to other conditions. Despite its presentation as a secondary condition in a number of diseases, it is very rare for achalasia to be associated with multiple myeloma especially as the presenting symptom when the patient's disease has not been diagnosed yet. Initial manifestations of multiple myeloma include array of symptoms such as back pain, bone lesions, and anemia, but as mentioned before it is extremely rare for it to initially present with achalasia. Here we describe a man who initially presented with dysphagia and further studies confirmed the diagnosis of achalasia. Later he was diagnosed as having multiple myeloma following other presentations of the disease, thus making the dysphagia caused by achalasia his presenting symptom of multiple myeloma

Ulcerative colitis following orthotopic cardiac transplantation

Inflammatory bowel disease following a solid organ transplantation while the patient is re-ceiving immunosuppressive therapy is a rare phenomenon. Here we present a 48-year-old man who underwent cardiac transplantation 9 years earlier and was receiving cyclosporine as immunosuppressive therapy since then, presenting with complaints of rectorrhagia and diarrhea. In follow-up, he was diagnosed as having ulcerative colitis. We also reviewed the literature for similar cases, which yielded very few similar ones