[Tuberculosis in patients with lymphomas]

In a period of ten years (1980-1989) 6 patients, out of 506 cases of lymphoma, presented an active tuberculosis (1.18%). Five of them had Hodgkin disease in an advanced stage, with predominance of the nodular sclerosis histologic subtype; one had a non Hodgkin lymphoma. Clinical presentation of TBC was mostly focal with a predominance of extra pulmonary involvement (cervical tuberculous lymphadenitis); disseminated disease only appeared in the non Hodgkin lymphoma patient. There was no difference in the severity of the infection when it appeared either before or after multiagent therapy of the hematologic malignancy. There was clinical suspicion of TBC in all of the pulmonary forms of the disease; lymph node tuberculosis, without drainage of caseous material, was a finding related to the routine culture of lymphatic tissue. In biopsy material, in which Mycobacterium tuberculosis was isolated, neither epithelioid cell granulomas with caseation necrosis nor acid-fast bacilli were histopathologically documented. No mortality due to tuberculous infection was registered in this group. TBC prevalence in these lymphoma patients was 1185.7 per 100,000; compared with the prevalence of this disease in the general population (52.3 per 100,000) a significant difference is demonstrated (p < 0.0001) and it is related to Hodgkin lymphoma.