Walsh & Hoyt: Paraneoplastic Peripheral Neuropathies

The most common cause of peripheral neuropathy in a patient with cancer is compression of a nerve trunk by a mass of tumor cells. Less commonly, neuropathies result from infiltration by tumor cells of the epineurium of spinal or cranial nerve roots or peripheral nerves. Peripheral nerves can also be injured by the toxic effects of certain chemotherapeutic agents and radiation treatment. In addition, some patients with malignancies develop a progressive peripheral neuropathy that is unassociated with evidence of metastatic tumor or the effects of cancer treatment and is therefore thought to be a remote effect of the primary lesion, an association first recognized and described in detail by Denny-Brown.