[Diagnosis and differential diagnosis of primary lymph node plasmacytomas]

A case of 75 year-old man is reported, who died of a tuberculous leptomeningomyeloencephalitis complicating a generalized primary lymph node plasmacytoma. The malignant lymphoma has been diagnosed in a lymph node biopsy from the right supraclavicular region seven years before the death and was treated with cytostatics over a period of four and a half months. Autopsy revealed the neoplastic involvement of supraclavicular and axillary lymph nodes, tumour infiltration of the sternum and diffuse neoplastic plasmacytosis of the bone marrow. The lymph node plasmacytoma has to be differentiated from reactive lymph node plasmacytosis, angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy with excessive plasmacytosis, lymphoplasmacytic immunocytoma, metastasis of an extramedullary plasmacytoma or of a multiple myeloma, and from a lymph node involved by plasma-cell leukemia.