A rare entity among childhood malignant lymphomas (large anaplastic T-cell Ki-1 +)

A case of peripheral type T-cell lymphoma is presented to underline the difficulty in distinguishing the initial clinical findings of an inflammatory neoplastic disorder since the diagnosis could only be arrived at after several repeated lymph node biopsies. An 11 10/12-year-old boy admitted to the hospital with inguinal lymph node enlargement was diagnosed as having adenitis and periadenitis. The disease had progressed and the patient had remittent fever rising to 39 degrees C, and another biopsy was taken. Cervical lymphadenomegaly was present, A diagnosis of chronic lymphadenitis with lymphocyte loss and fibrosis was established. The diagnosis could only be made from biopsy material taken from the deep cervical (jugularis interna) and axillary lymph nodes one year later, which showed Ki-1 antigen positive large T-cell lymphoma. The disease showed continuous activity in spite of chemotherapy and the child survived only 17 months.