Reactive lymphoid hyperplasia of the liver: A rare case report

Hepatic reactive lymphoid hyperplasia (RLH) is a rare benign lymphoproliferative lesion and a poorly understood disease. It is usually asymptomatic and incidental, but it is difficult to distinguish from hepatocellular carcinoma and metastatic liver tumor on imaging, and percutaneous biopsy is not sufficient to distinguish from low-grade malignant lymphoma and extranodal marginal zone lymphoma of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT lymphoma), making diagnosis difficult.

A 69-year-old woman came to our hospital for reexamination of pulmonary nodules followed by liver occupation. The lesions showed "wash-in and wash-out" on contrast-enhanced ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging. Enhanced magnetic resonance also showed annular envelope enhancement and limited diffusion on the ADC map during the delay period. Imaging revealed metastatic liver cancer, and the patient underwent a partial hepatectomy. However, the final histopathological diagnosis was RLH.

If small isolated nodules are found in the liver of middle-aged and elderly female patients with no risk factors for liver malignancy, when the enhanced imaging suggests "wash-in and wash-out", further focus should be placed on whether the enhanced imaging shows perinodular enhancement and whether the DWI shows limited diffusion in MRI, in order to emphasize the possibility of liver RLH diagnosis.