Simultaneous non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and mesothelioma presenting as a collision tumour

Our plain-English summary of Simultaneous non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and mesothelioma presenting as a collision tumour, by L.D. Gudur, M. Munavvar, A. Walsham, et al (Histopathology, 2005).

The study

• Authors: L.D. Gudur, M. Munavvar, A. Walsham, J.M. Edwards
• Journal: Histopathology
• Published: 2005;47(5):546-8
• Type of article: Case report, Letter
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This letter to the journal was a case report about one patient. The authors, from the Royal Preston Hospital in Preston, UK, described a 54-year-old man with a history of asbestos exposure. He came to doctors with fluid around both lungs (bilateral pleural effusions) and swollen lymph nodes in the neck. A neck lymph node was removed and confirmed follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. A CT scan also showed pleural thickening and a left-sided pleural mass destroying ribs, and both lymphoma and mesothelioma were strongly suspected. The man died before further tests could be done, and a post mortem was performed. It confirmed B-cell lymphoma in the lymph nodes, liver and spleen, and a sarcomatous pleural mesothelioma. No asbestos plaques were found. In some areas the pleural tumour had been overrun by lymphoma cells, forming what the authors called a collision tumour. The letter did not describe the type, source or amount of asbestos exposure. The authors concluded that, to their knowledge, this was the first such intermingling in an asbestos-exposed patient, and that the case would support an earlier suggestion that asbestos exposure may predispose to both mesothelioma and lymphoma.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Case report (letter to the journal) of a single patient
• Who was studied: One 54-year-old man, reported by authors from the Royal Preston Hospital, Preston, UK. The date of the case is not given.
• Exposure: A history of asbestos exposure. The letter gives no fiber type, job, product or dose.
• Main results:
  • A biopsy of a neck (cervical) lymph node confirmed follicular centrocytic-centroblastic non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in this patient.
  • The patient died before further investigations could be carried out, and a post mortem was performed.
  • At post mortem, B-cell lymphoma was confirmed in the lymph nodes, liver and spleen.
  • At post mortem, the pleural tumour was a spindle-cell paucicellular sarcomatous mesothelioma. It was positive on staining for cytokeratins, calretinin and thrombomodulin.
  • In some areas, lymphoma cells had infiltrated the pleural mesothelioma. Elsewhere the tumour was pure mesothelioma.
  • No asbestos plaques were found at post mortem.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors stated that, to their knowledge, this was the first case of intermingling mesothelioma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in a patient exposed to asbestos. They noted that it had previously been suggested that asbestos exposure may predispose to mesothelioma and lymphoma, and concluded that this case would support that hypothesis.

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Mesothelioma.

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma.

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• Clinicopathologic characteristics of malignant mesotheliomas arising in patients with a history of radiation for Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma — L.R. Chirieac, J.A. Barletta, et al. (2013)
• Does asbestos exposure cause non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or related hematolymphoid cancers? A review of the epidemiologic literature — D.D. Weisenburger, B.C. Chiu (2002)
• Pulmonary asbestosis associated to pleural non-Hodgkin lymphoma — E. Parisio, C. Bianchi, et al. (1999)
• Occupational asbestos exposure and the incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma of the gastrointestinal tract: an ecologic study — M.M. Treggiari, N.S. Weiss (2004)

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