Clinicopathological characterization of an HIV-2-infected individual with two clonally unrelated primary lymphomas

Human immunodeficiency virus 2 (HIV-2) is endemic in West Africa and is a causative agent of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Only a small number of HIV-2-infected patients have been described in detail. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) is the second most common neoplasm occurring in HIV-1-infected patients, but its incidence seems to be lower in HIV-2-infected individuals. We report an HIV-2-infected patient from Cape Verde (West Africa) with separate and distinct systemic and primary central nervous system large B-cell lymphomas and review the findings of cases of HIV-2-associated lymphomas reported in the literature. Different clonal rearrangements of the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene could be detected in the two lymphomas of our patient by polymerase chain reaction and sequence analysis. These data indicate the presence of two clonally unrelated large B-cell lymphomas in the same patient, which is an unusual finding. Neither Epstein-Barr virus nor human herpesvirus 8 could be detected in the tumor tissues or the cerebrospinal fluid. HIV-2 infection should be considered in patients with NHL, especially in those from West Africa.