The patient we present here had many clinical, morphological, and laboratory findings characteristic of acute leukemia. During the course of the disease, the diagnosis changed from acute leukemia to chronic small B-cell lymphoproliferative disease, a blastoid variant of mantle cell lymphoma, and finally to atypical plasma cell leukemia. Atypical plasma cell leukemia is a rare condition with aggressive biological behavior.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerivascular epitheloid cell tumors (PEComa) represent a group of usually benign mesenchymal neoplasms. Malignant variants are usually found only in adults. We present a 10-year-old girl with infraclavicular malignant PEComa, negative for HMB-45 and Melan A but focally positive for MITF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince there are no standardized protocols regarding the detection of microscopic melanoma deposits in sentinel lymph nodes (SLN), the aim of this study was to present our experience with intraoperative cytological evaluation of SLN in patients with melanoma. The study included 475 SLN biopsies (SLNB) from 201 patients with primary cutaneous melanoma of intermediate thickness. Each lymph node was cut in half; touch imprint cytology (TIC) preparations of all cut surfaces were performed and stained according to a modified May-Grünwald-Giemsa method.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSimultaneous occurrence of T-cell and B-cell neoplasms is rare, and etiologic relationships between these 2 malignancies are poorly understood. We describe the case of a 66-year-old woman who was admitted to the hospital because of fever, hemoptysis, lymphadenopathy, and skin rash. Enlarged lymph nodes in axillary, pectoral, paratracheal, and periportal regions as well as slight hepatomegaly and splenomegaly were confirmed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCL) are heterogeneous diseases, and the identification of additional DLBCL risk factors is especially important.
Methods: In this pilot study, we determined pretreatment serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), osteopontin (OPN) and macrophage chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) in 67 newly diagnosed DLBCL patients before treatment with standard chemoimmunotherapy and in 30 healthy persons.
Results: Serum levels of all three cytokines were significantly elevated in untreated patients compared to controls.