[Malignant and benign lymphomas of the eye, eyelid, and orbit (author's transl)]

Twenty-three lymphomas of the eye, eyelid, and orbit were chosen study from biopsy material of the Department of Pathology, University of Kiel, and the Lymph Node Registry in Kiel. There were 12 malignant non-Hodgkin's lymphomas and 11 benign lymphomas. Catamnestic examination confirmed the histologic diagnosis in all 11 cases of benign lymphoma. Eleven of the malignant lymphomas represented immunocytomas and were therefore a low-grade malignancy. In contrast, there was only one case of malignant lymphoma of high-grade malignancy, which was diagnosed as centroblastic lymphoma. The immunocytoma was retrobulbar in one third of our cases and conjuctival in only 2 cases, whereas benign lymphoma had developed in the conjunctiva in 7 of 11 cases. Immunocytoma represents a tumor composed of lymphocytes and plasma cells or plasmacytoid cells. PAS-positive globular inclusions are usually found in the nucleus and/or cytoplasm of the plasma cells or plasmacytoid cells.