Pericardial Effusion Secondary to Nilotinib in an Elderly Patient With Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia

Geetika Arora; Paulus Adinugraha; Amna Aijaz; Alvaro Vargas Pelaez; Maurice Rachko

doi:10.7759/cureus.23855

Pericardial Effusion Secondary to Nilotinib in an Elderly Patient With Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia

Cureus. 2022 Apr 5;14(4):e23855. doi: 10.7759/cureus.23855. eCollection 2022 Apr.

Authors

Geetika Arora¹, Paulus Adinugraha¹, Amna Aijaz², Alvaro Vargas Pelaez³, Maurice Rachko³

Affiliations

¹ Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai Beth Israel/Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, USA.
² Internal Medicine/Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA.
³ Cardiology, Mount Sinai Beth Israel/Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City, USA.

Abstract

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are the first-line treatment for patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Serositis, including pleural and pericardial effusions, is a frequent adverse event with some TKIs while less frequent with others. We present a case of a 76-year-old woman with CML on nilotinib who presented with progressive fatigue and was eventually found to have cardiac tamponade from a large pericardial effusion attributed to nilotinib. The patient required urgent therapeutic pericardiocentesis and switching of TKIs from nilotinib to bosutinib.

Keywords: cardiac tamponade; nilotinib; pericardial effusion; serositis; tyrosine kinase inhibitors (tki).

Publication types

Case Reports