The overall survival of POEMS patients who have been treated for their disease is relatively good for a disease occurring in patients with an average age of 50 years; one estimate of median overall survival is 14 years. POEMS patients evaluated to be in low and intermediate risk groups had ≥>85% survival at 10 years; those in the high risk group had a 40% survival over this time period. Cryoglobulinemia
Cryoglobulins are proteins, principally immunoglobulins, that circulate in the blood, precipitate at temperatures <37 °C (98.6 °F), and re-solubilize upon restoring physiological blood temperatures. They are made and secreted into the blood as a result of underlying pathological conditions viz., inflammation, infection, or malignancies. Rarely, cryoglobulinemia (i.e. essential cryoglobulinemia) occurs in patients without these or other identifiable conditions. Non-essential cryoglobulonemia is classified into three types. Type 1 cryoglobulinemia (10-25% of cases) involves a circulating myeloma protein, typically IgM or IgG but in rare case reports IgA. The condition is associated with Waldenström macroglobulinemia or multiple myeloma in ~40% of type I cases, the MGUS or smoldering predecessors to these diseases in ~44% of type I cases, and other B cell lymphoproliferative disorders in ~16% of type I cases. Type II cryglobulinemia (50-60% of cases) involves circulating IgM myeloma protein with rheumatoid factor activity and therefore bound to polyclonal IgG and protein components of the blood complement system; hepatitis C virus and, far more rarely, hepatitis B virus or human immunodeficiency virus infections are the major causes of this cryoglobulinemia.
Reports of the case were made in the Mercure de France and an illustration of the infant was made by Marie Bihéron. The case was also mentioned in Volume IV of Buffons LHistoire Naturelle. On 1 March 1793, a 46-year-old woman in Boalts Torp, Glimåkra, Sweden gave birth to a child with cyclopia that died after two hours. The child was 35 cm long, its face without nose and nostrils, and its lidless eye with no eyebrow sat raised on the middle of its forehead like a large blueberry. The wrists were somewhat crooked as well as the right foot which was completely crooked and bent inwards. It was not clear whether it was a boy or a girl, but it was believed to be the former. On December 28, 2005, a kitten with cyclopia, "Cy", was born in Redmond, Oregon, United States and died about one day after birth. In 2006, a baby girl in India with cyclopia was born. Her only eye was in the center of her forehead. She did not have a nose and her brain did not separate into two separate hemispheres (holoprosencephaly). The child died one day after her birth. In 2011, an albino cyclops shark fetus was discovered in the body of a caught shark in Mexico, with no discernible nose and one giant eye. The unborn fetus was turned over for medical studies. On October 10, 2012, a small kitten was born.