Systematic Review of Spinal Lymphomatoid Granulomatosis Cases

Lymphomatoid granulomatosis (LYG) is a rare Epstein-Barr virus-associated systemic angiocentric and angiodestructive lymphoproliferative disorder. It commonly involves the lungs and can also affect the skin, liver, kidney, and central nervous system. It can rarely occur in the spine, however, the details are unclear. We performed a systematic review of published cases (including our 1 case) of spinal LYG. We performed a systematic search of studies in English on spinal LYG, focusing on its clinical features, imaging, and treatments, according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines on the PubMed database. We identified 14 patients from the literature. We also found 1 case of isolated cervical LYG (grade 3) who was treated with steroid and radiation therapy for the spinal lesion after pathologic diagnosis. We performed a pooled analysis of these 15 cases. The mean age was 43.4 years, and 13 of the 15 patients were male. Brain lesions were present in 11 of 12 intramedullary spinal lesions, and only 1 was an isolated spinal LYG case. Regarding the diagnostic methods, 1 case was not described. Of the 14 cases described, 12 patients underwent biopsies (7 brain, 4 lung, and 1 spinal cord lesion) and 2 underwent surgical removal for an extramedullary lesion. In the overall prognosis from a mean follow-up period of 21.6 months, 4 patients died despite several treatments. Spinal LYG, particularly isolated spinal LYG, is rare. Thus further accumulation of cases may be necessary to better understand its characteristics.