Case report: imaging features in a renal transplant patient with calcineurin inhibitor-induced pain syndrome (CIPS)

Abstract

Post-transplant distal limb bone marrow edema syndrome or calcineurin inhibitor-induced pain syndrome (CIPS) is generally a self-limiting but debilitating acute pain syndrome that has been reported in 2-14% of renal transplant recipients. The disease is extensively described in the transplant literature in patients receiving the calcineurin inhibitors cyclosporine and tacrolimus. We present a case of CIPS arising in a patient 73days after renal allograft, review the imaging findings, and discuss proposed etiologies and differential diagnoses. To the authors' knowledge, CIPS has not been characterized as a distinct entity in the radiology literature.