This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
151 DOI: 10.5045/kjh.2010.45.3.151
The Korean Journal of Hematology Volume 45ㆍNumber 3ㆍSeptember 2010
Bone marrow infiltration of lymphoma
Ki Hwan Kim
1, Ho Young Lee
2Departments of 1Internal Medicine, 2Nuclear Medicine, Seoul National University Boramae Medical Center, Seoul, Korea
A 68-year-old woman presented with rapidly growing multiple lymphadenopathy, night fever, weight loss, and drenching sweat. Physical examination revealed enlarged liver and spleen. Blood tests revealed pancytopenia, elevated levels of lactate dehydrogenase, and positive results in direct Coombs’ test. Computed tomography showed multiple enlarged lymph nodes and hepatosplenomegaly. She was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma after exci- sional biopsy of the inguinal lymph node. Extensive hypermetabolism of the bone marrow was observed on pre- therapy 18F-FDG PET (Fig. A), and this finding was in concordance with the results from bilateral trephine biopsies showing diffuse infiltration of lymphoma cells (Fig. B). Cerebrospinal fluid involvement was ruled out by lumbar puncture. Aggressive hydration with alkalinization of urine was performed to prevent tumor lysis syndrome.
Complete remission was achieved after 4 cycles of 3-week combination immunochemotherapy, including cyclo- phosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisolone, and rituximab (Fig. C). Follow-up trephine biopsy of bone mar- row and direct Coombs’ test also yielded normal results after chemotherapy.