[Tuberculosis of the lymph nodes and spleen preceding Hodgkin's disease]

Tuberculosis of the lymph nodes is not rare today. However tuberculosis of the spleen has been very rare even in the past when many patients had suffered from tuberculosis. The appearance of Hodgkin's disease following tuberculosis is an extremely rare condition. It has thought that deficiency of cellular immunity was responsible for both tuberculosis and malignancy. We present a 44-year-old man in whom lymph node and spleen tuberculosis antedated the clinical onset of Hodgkin's disease for three years. The patient was successfully treated with tuberculostatics until he developed Hodgkin's disease; he was treated according to MOPP protocol. Six years after the onset of disease nodular lesion of the spleen was detected and splenectomy was carried out. The enlarged spleen, g in weight, was removed with tuberculoma in the lower pole, 4 cm in diameter. The tuberculostatic therapy for a year followed splenectomy. The patient stayed symptom-free, with no sign of tuberculosis. He is in the remission stage of Hodgkin's disease with normal clinical and laboratory data.