Acute spontaneous tumor lysis syndrome

An 83‐year‐old woman with no previous history of malignancy was admitted to our institution with weakness and anemia and subsequently developed acute tumor lysis syndrome secondary to newly diagnosed Burkitt's leukemia/lymphoma. This syndrome has been previously described in patients with hematologic malignancies; however, its development has been related to the administration of chemotherapy, steroids, or radiotherapy. The spontaneous occurrence of tumor lysis syndrome has not been previously reported; however, Cohen et al. [ Am J Med 58:486–491, 1980] report 8 of 37 patients with “clinically insignificant pretreatment derangements” of serum potassium, phosphate, and calcium. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.