Patient: Female, 38-year-old
Final Diagnosis: Nasal-type extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma
Symptoms: Facial pain • dyspnea • non-productive cough • nausea • vomiting • green nasal discharge • dark-brown eye discharge
Clinical Procedure: —
Specialty: Oncology
Objective:
Rare disease
Background:
Nasal-type extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (ENKL) is an exceedingly rare and aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The malignancy has both a high morbidity and mortality and is most commonly discovered in patients with advanced stages of the disease. As a result, early detection and treatment is tantamount to improving survival and minimizing lasting effects.
Case Report:
Herein, we report a case of nasal-type ENKL in a woman with facial pain and associated nasal and eye discharge. We highlight the histopathologic features from nasopharyngeal and bone marrow biopsy, which demonstrated Epstein-Barr virus-positive biomarkers of diffuse and subtle involvement, respectively, with associated chromogenic immunohistochemical staining. We also highlight existing therapy utilizing a combination of chemotherapy with radiation, as well as consolidation therapy, and suggest the need for further research of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell treatment and the potential of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibition in managing nasal-type ENKL malignancy.
Conclusions:
Nasal-type ENKL is a rare subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that is infrequently associated with bone marrow involvement. The malignancy has a poor prognosis overall and typically is discovered late in the disease course. Current treatment favors utilization of combined modality therapy. However, previous studies have been inconsistent in determining whether chemotherapy or radiation therapy can be used alone. Additionally, promising results have also been shown with chemokine modulators, including antagonistic drugs that target PD-L1, in refractory and advanced cases.
Heart failure, which is a clinical syndrome characterized by the heart's inability to maintain adequate cardiac output, is known to affect various organ systems in the body due to its ischemic nature and activation of the systemic immune response, but the resultant complications specifically on the gastrointestinal tract and the liver are not well discussed and poorly understood. Gastrointestinal-related phenomena are common symptoms experienced in patients with heart failure and frequently found to increase morbidity and mortality in these populations. The relationship between the gastrointestinal tract and heart failure are strongly linked and influence each other much so that the bidirectional association of the two is oftentimes referred to as cardiointestinal syndrome. Manifestations include gastrointestinal prodrome, bacterial translocation and protein-losing gastroenteropathy by gut wall edema, cardiac cachexia, hepatic insult and injury, and ischemic colitis. More attention is needed from a cardiology perspective to recognize these common presenting gastrointestinal phenomena that affect much of our patient population with heart failure. In this overview, we describe the association between heart failure and the gastrointestinal tract, the pathophysiology, lab findings, clinical manifestations and complications, and the management involved.
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