IgG4-related disease is a recently proposed clinical entity with several unique clinicopathological features. Ocular adnexal IgG4-related disease, however, has not well been clarified. The purpose of the present study was to examine 21 patients (10 men, 11 women; age range, 39-86 years) with ocular adnexal IgG4-related disease. In 17 out of 21 patients (81%), the lacrimal glands were involved and bilateral lacrimal gland swelling was frequently observed (n = 12; 70.6%). In contrast, the conjunctiva was not involved in any of the patient. Histology was uniform with marked lymphoplasmacytic infiltration admixed with dense fibrosis, similar to previous reports of IgG4-related disease. Immunostaining detected numerous aggregates of IgG4-positive plasma cells. Serum IgG4 was higher than normal in 10 of the 13 patients tested, although it was measured after treatment in almost all cases. Interestingly, immunoglobulin heavy chain gene rearrangement was detected in two of 17 patients (12%) examined. The present results show that ocular adnexal IgG4-related disease has uniform clinicopathology: that is, disease involving the bilateral lacrimal glands with lymphoid hyperplasia and fibrosis, but not the conjunctiva. And presence of immunoglobulin heavy chain gene rearrangement suggests the possibility of B-cell lymphoma arising in a background of IgG4-related chronic inflammation. 2 Additionally, AIP has been described in association with other autoimmune disorders, such as chronic sclerosing sialadenitis (Küttner's tumor), sclerosing cholangitis and retroperitoneal fibrosis. 3-15IgG4-related disease is a recently proposed clinical entity and it has several unique clinical findings, but its pathogenesis and pathophysiology remain unclear.3-9 And ocular adnexal IgG4-related disease is either not mentioned or only briefly alluded to in previous reports. 6,[10][11][12] In the present study we examined ocular adnexal IgG4-related disease in detail, with specific reference to clinicopathological features. MATERIALS AND METHODS Patients and materialsWe reviewed the cases of 112 patients (orbital lesions, n = 78; conjunctival lesions, n = 34) with ocular adnexal lymphoproliferative disorders diagnosed between 1990 and 2006. All cases were retrieved from the files of the Department of Pathology, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan. Histology and immunohistochemistrySurgically resected or biopsied specimens of ocular adnexal lymphoid disorders were fixed in 10% formaldehyde and embedded in paraffin. Serial sections (4 mm) were cut from

No abstract

We conducted a multicenter, retrospective study to determine the anatomical distribution and prognostic factors of gastrointestinal (GI) follicular lymphoma (FL). This study included 125 patients with stage I and II 1 GI-FL. Of the 125 patients, the small intestine was examined in 70 patients, with double-balloon endoscopy and ⁄ or capsule endoscopy. The most frequently involved GI-FL site was the duodenal second portion (DSP) (81%), followed by the jejunum (40%); 85% of patients with involvement of the DSP also had jejunal or ileal lesions. The absence of abdominal symptoms and macroscopic appearance of multiple nodules were significantly present in the DSP-positive group. During a median follow up of 40 months, six patients showed disease progression. Patients with involvement of the DSP had better progression-free survival (PFS) than those without such involvement (P = 0.001). A multivariate analysis revealed that male sex, the presence of abdominal symptoms, and negative involvement of the DSP were independently associated with poor PFS. In conclusion, most patients with GI-FL have duodenal lesions associated with multiple jejunal or ileal lesions. Gastrointestinal follicular lymphomas involving the DSP might be a distinct entity showing a favorable clinical course. (Cancer Sci 2011; 102: 1532-1536

Although most follicular lymphomas are believed to be of nodal origin, they sometimes originate from the duodenum. We have reported that the latter differ from nodal follicular lymphomas in having lower clinical stages and uniformly low histological grades, along with variable region of immunoglobulin heavy chain gene (VH) usage that is more similar to mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphomas. Little is known, however, about whether they possess other characteristics of nodal follicular lymphomas, particularly ongoing mutations with follicular dendritic cells. We examined 17 cases for which PCR identified the monoclonal bands of the immunoglobulin gene. The duodenal cases showed ongoing mutations, but they lacked activationinduced cytidine deaminase (AID) expression, a statistically significant difference from the nodal cases (Po0.001), and their follicular dendritic cell networks were disrupted. Moreover, not only were VH deviations observed but also they used very restricted VH genes. Although the mechanisms of ongoing mutation without AID and follicular dendritic cell were not clarified, restricted VH usage strongly suggested that antigen stimulation was involved, and that was similar to MALT lymphomas. In conclusion, duodenal follicular lymphomas were shown to be unique, in that they had ongoing hypermutations such as nodal cases, but the mechanisms involved in the hypermutation were quite different; furthermore, restricted VH usage suggested a strong similarity to the antigen-dependent origin of MALT lymphomas.

The authors conclude that multicentric Castleman's disease sometimes occurs with abundant IgG4-positive cells and elevated serum IgG4 levels. Therefore, the two diseases cannot be differentially diagnosed by immunohistochemical staining alone. Laboratory findings, especially IL-6 level, C-reactive protein level and platelet count, are important for the differential diagnosis of the two diseases.