Gastrointestinal tract and Russell bodies - a case report of Russell body carditis and review of the literature

We report a case of rare Russell body (RB) carditis and present an analysis of the available literature on this topic. Our patient was a 77-year-old man referred for gastroscopy because of non-cardiac chest pain and mild dysphagia. Endoscopy revealed several areas of different and mildly prominent mucosa in the gastroesofageal junction (Fig. 1). Biopsy samples obtained from the gastroesofageal junction showed nondysplastic intestinal metaplasia with mild chronic inflammatory infiltrate of edematous lamina propria and abundant plasma cells containing intracytoplasmic eosinophilic globules highlighted by a periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) ; findings were identified by pathologist as RBs (Fig. 2). Patient's symptoms were controlled by PPI and prokinetics. Follow-up endoscopy with biopsies of different parts of upper GI tract was performed - without RBs presence except of the previously identified RB carditis.