AIDS-related benign lymphadenopathy and malignant lymphoma: clinical aspects and virologic interactions

Infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) leads to selective depletion of the helper/inducer lymphocyte subset and a subsequent state of acquired cellular immunodeficiency. Simultaneously, evidence of B-cell hyper-activity may exist. A subset of patients infected with HIV demonstrates a syndrome of persistent generalized lymphadenopathy (PGL). Lymph node biopsies reveal benign reactive changes with a pattern of florid follicular hyperplasia. A polyclonal hypergammaglobulinemia reflects humoral immune dysfunction. Patients with PGL are similar to those with full-blown AIDS with regards to demographics, immune and virologic studies. Our prospective natural history study of PGL patients initiated in November 1981 reveals a 15% rate of evolution to AIDS in the 200 patient cohort. Factors associated with increased risk of transformation to AIDS include severity of constitutional symptoms, shrinking adenopathy, oral candidiasis or viral hairy leukoplakia, peripheral cytopenias, elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate or an antecedent episode of herpes zoster. Therapeutic interventions to prevent evolution to AIDS in high risk subsets of lymphadenopathy patients have been investigated. In addition to benign B-cell proliferation associated with HIV infection, malignant lymphomas have also been diagnosed in 29 patients in AIDS risk groups in our clinic population. All patients were male; 26 homosexuals, 2 IV drug abusers and 1 multiply transfused sickle cell anemia patient. Seven patients had antecedent PGL. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was diagnosed in 19 patients. Histologies were predominantly diffuse undifferentiated or large cell. Eleven patients were Stage IV at diagnosis. Of 10 patients with mixed cellularity Hodgkin's disease, 7 were Stage IV-B at presentation. Extranodal disease was frequent in patients with lymphomas. Fourteen patients lacked peripheral lymphadenopathy. Response to chemotherapy was good, but complicated by prolonged marrow suppression and development of AIDS-related opportunistic infections. Median survival was 7 months. Laboratory studies investigating the possible role of lymphotropic retroviruses in the development of AIDS-related lymphomas revealed that serum from all patients with high grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma contained antibodies to HIV and that the majority also expressed antibodies to HTLV-I. This degree of seroreactivity to HTLV-I and HIV was characteristic only of lymphoma patients as sera from only 10 - 15% of AIDS and ARC patients in San Francisco had similar findings.