Ocular and central nervous system lymphoma: clinical features and diagnosis.

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical, angiographic, and cytopathologic features of ocular and central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma.

Patients And Methods: Retrospective study of 44 patients over a 10-year period.

Results: A total of 36 women and six men, mean age 54 years (range: 36-90 years), were included.

A single-center study of 11 patients with intraocular lymphoma treated with conventional chemotherapy followed by high-dose chemotherapy and autologous bone marrow transplantation in 5 cases.

Intraocular lymphoma (IOL) is a rare form of non Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL); it has a poor prognosis and is frequently associated with central nervous system (CNS) infiltration. We report the results of a prospective study of 11 patients with IOL who received conventional chemotherapy (CT), followed by salvage high-dose (HD) CT with autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) in five cases. All 11 patients had abnormal funduscopic findings and six had CNS involvement at diagnosis.

[Retinal manifestations of AIDS].

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis is the most common retinal opportunistic infection in AIDS patients and is the main cause of blindness. It is generally associated with a CD4+ lymphocyte count below 50/microL. CMV retinitis is often asymptomatic (54% of the cases), frequent ophtalmoscopic screening is very important.

Detection of human herpes virus 6 in AIDS-associated retinitis by means of in situ hybridization, polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemistry.

The ubiquitous nature of HHV-6 and its genomic relationship with cytomegalovirus led us to evaluate an etiological link between HHV-6 and AIDS-associated retinitis in a prospective study. HHV-6 infection was studied in patients with AIDS-associated retinitis and in two control populations. Eye pairs were obtained at necropsy from nine patients with AIDS-associated retinitis, four human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-sero-positive patients with normal fundus examination and three HIV-seronegative patients.