Malignant lymphomas of the breast

Primary non-Hodgkin malignant lymphomas (ml) of the breast are infrequent (0.05-0.5% of all malignant breast tumours). In the present series, 10 cases seen between 1980-1989 from the files of the Malignant Lymphoma Reference Center, Pécs, Hungary, were re-evaluated. Nine out of the 10 cases were of B-cell origin, 4/10 of low grade and 6/10 of high grade malignancy. In the latter group there were 4 centroblastic ml-s. In one of them transformation of a low grade MALT-type ml to centroblastic ml was suspected. Another high grade B-cell ml was similar to the recently described mediastinal clear cell ml, B-cell type. At presentation, 7 out of 10 patients were in clinical stage IE. In the same period (1980-1989), 5 further cases with clinical suspicion of breast tumor had reactive lesions (florid follicular hyperplasia).