Concomitant adenocarcinoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, both located in the intestinal tract, are unusual. Collision tumors of the colon on the other hand are extremely rare neoplasms. A case of true collision tumor of a marginal zone lymphoma and a moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma of the ascending colon (hepatic flexure) is reported. Simultaneously, a third primary is identified as follicular lymphoma involving the terminal ileum. Correlation with clinical history, radiology investigations, endoscopic findings and histological examination of the resected specimen as well as the use of ancillary techniques such as immunohistochemistry are the most useful in making the correct diagnosis of a synchronous three primaries involving the small bowel and colon. Therefore, we present these three primary synchronous neoplasms involving two different parts of the gastrointestinal tract, with two of these three primaries colliding at one organ.
The International Working Formulation divides non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) into three grades: low, intermediate and high. This grading system implies rate of tumour growth and hence prognosis. Ki-67 antigen is a proliferation-related nuclear antigen and bcl-2 oncogene product is known to inhibit apoptosis. This study aimed to determine the pattern of expression of Ki-67 antigen and bcl-2 oncoprotein in various grades of NHL. Paraffin-embedded tissues from 42 cases of NHL (7 low, 15 intermediate, 20 high grade) were retrieved from the files of the Department of Pathology, University of Malaya. Ki-67 antigen and bcl-2 oncoprotein were detected using immunohistochemistry. The percentage of positively stained neoplastic cells was determined by semi-quantitative estimation and given scores ranging from 0 to 6. Partition chi square test demonstrated the association of Ki-67 antigen expression and histological grade (p = 0.007). There was no significant difference in Ki-67 antigen expression between intermediate and high grade malignant lymphomas (p = 0.28), whereas significant difference was demonstrated between low and intermediate/high grade tumours (p = 0.003). Bcl-2 oncoprotein expression in the neoplastic cells varied widely within the three histological grades. Statistical analysis showed no association between the expression of bcl-2 oncoprotein and histological grade (p = 0.25). Ki-67 immunostaining is therefore a useful adjunct to histological grading of NHL.
Radioimmunotherapy is an established treatment modality in Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The only two commercially available radioimmunotherapies - (90)Y-ibritumomab tiuxetan is expensive and (131)I-tositumomab has been discontinued from commercial production. In resource limited environment, self-labelling (131)I-rituximab might be the only viable practical option. We reported our pioneer experience in Malaysia on self-labelling (131)I-rituximab, substituting autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and a patient, the first reported case, received high dose (131)I-rituximab (6000MBq/163mCi) combined with BEAM conditioning for autologous HSCT.
Anaemia is a frequent complication in patients with haematological malignancies and is caused by a variety of mechanisms including neoplastic cell infiltration into the bone marrow, haemolysis, nutritional deficiencies and defect in erythropoiesis or dysplastic anaemia as a result of the disease itself. However, acquired dysplastic anaemia which mimic congenital dyserythropoietic anaemia (CDA) type II morphology in the bone marrow is very rare. A 41-year-old Chinese man presented with refractory symptomatic anaemia in September 2001. He was clinically pale with no other significant physical finding. His initial peripheral blood picture showed normochromic normocytic anaemia with haemoglobin level of 26g/L, with no evidence of haemolysis and a poor reticulocyte response of 0.6%. Bone marrow aspiration was done and showed congenital dyserythropoietic anaemia (CDA) type II-like morphology. He was treated symptomatically with regular blood transfusions approximately every 3 weeks, until August 2002 when he developed multiple cervical lymphadenopathy with loss of appetite, loss of weight and low grade fever. Biopsy of the lymph node confirmed the diagnosis of small lymphocytic lymphoma. Staging with computed tomography and bone marrow aspirate revealed the infiltration of lymphoma cells into the marrow cavity consistent with the staging of IVB. This case report illustrates that CDA type II-like dysplastic anaemia can preceed the development of lymphoma.
The pattern of childhood non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) usually differs in adults. The most common subtypes are lymphoblastic, Burkitt's and anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Recent data indicate that a higher risk of developing lymphoma is associated in children of certain ethnic origins. The difference is probably related to the underlying etiological factors of these diseases, and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a strong candidate. The present study aims to determine the disease pattern of childhood lymphomas in the University Hospital Kuala Lumpur, for a direct comparison to the reported data of adults from the same medical center. A total of 69 and 34 childhood NHL and Hodgkin's lymphomas, respectively, were retrieved. The most common subtypes were lymphoblastic (23 cases), Burkitt's (25 cases) and anaplastic large cell lymphomas (9 cases). Epstein-Barr virus association was more prevalent in B-cell (23%) than T-cell (12%) lymphomas. The most common EBV-associated tumor was Burkitt's lymphoma, and there was an increased risk of EBV association for Burkitt's lymphoma in Chinese patients. In conclusion, the pattern of childhood lymphoma in Malaysia is relatively similar to children elsewhere in the world. The EBV association of B- and T-NHL differs between children and adults from the same medical center because of differences in the subtype composition in these two age groups.
Many studies in the literature have shown that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with several human lymphoid and epithelial malignancies. However, the prevalence of EBV in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) of the lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract has not been fully elucidated.
Tumors of dendritic reticulum cells are rare neoplasms that exhibit significant morphologic overlap with other malignancies. Fine-needle aspiration cytologic appearances of this neoplasm are not well understood. A 33-yr-old woman presented with a rapidly growing nodular mass in the right upper cervical region and right-sided ptosis. Fine-needle aspiration cytology of the mass showed dissociated as well as clustered, large, polygonal cells that showed high nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio. Nuclei were round, oval, or irregular in shape. Large and small blastoid forms with prominent nucleoli and chromatin clumping as well as binucleated cells and cells with lobulated nuclei were seen. Numerous mitoses were observed. The tumor cells expressed focal immunocytochemical reactivity to CD45 and CD68, but were negative for CD2, CD3, CD4, CD8, CD20, CD30, CD45RO, epithelial membrane antigen (EMA), cytokeratin, and HMB45. Histologic sections of the biopsy from the growth showed nodal tissue effaced by a tumor composed of large, pleomorphic neoplastic cells with some binucleate and multinucleate forms resembling Reed-Sternberg cells. The intervening stroma contained numerous small lymphocytes. Tumor cells expressed vimentin, S-100 protein, CD68, and MAC387, but were negative for LCA, CD1a, CD3, CD15, CD20, CD21, CD23, CD30, CD35, carcino-embryonic antigen, HMB45, cytokeratin AE1/3, EMA, myeloperoxidase, lysozyme, smooth-muscle actin, and desmin. The combined histologic and immunohistologic features suggested a histiocytic/dendritic reticulum cell neoplasm and a diagnosis of interdigitating dendritic reticulum cell sarcoma was made.
Lymphoma is a relatively common group of neoplasms diagnosed in hospital practice. This study aims to elucidate the pattern of this disease encountered in a public service hospital of the Ministry of Health, Malaysia.
T- and B-lymphocytes are involved in recognition of foreign antigen by the specificity of their surface T-cell receptor and immunoglobulin, generated by gene rearrangement. Each T- and B-lymphocyte carries unique rearranged TCR or immunoglobulin gene, which has been applied to detect clonal from non-clonal T- and B-cell proliferation.
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) type B, a less potent transformer of B lymphocytes than type A, has rarely been detected in EBV-associated neoplasms except in AIDS-related lymphomas, in which about 50% of the cases contained this sub-type. In this study we analyzed the association of EBV and the distribution of virus sub-types in Asian non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) of the upper aerodigestive tract. We studied archival material of 29 NHL cases from Malaysia. B- and T-cell associated antigens were demonstrated by immunohistochemistry, and EBV early RNA EBER-1 was demonstrated using the RNA in situ hybridization technique. EBV was detected in the majority of tumour cells in 11/13 T-NHL but in only 1/16 B-NHL. EBV was sub-typed by single-step polymerase chain reaction of the EBNA-2 gene. This was successful in 9/10 cases of EBER-1-positive tumours and all contained type-A virus only. Our results showed a preponderance of T-cell lymphoma of the upper aerodigestive tract in the ethnic Chinese group of Malaysian patients, and EBV was strongly associated with T-NHL but not with B-NHL. Our results suggest that type-A EBV is the prevalent sub-type in Asian NHL of the upper aerodigestive tract, similarly to findings in Asian nasopharyngeal carcinoma.