High expression of CD56 (N‐CAM) in a patient with cutaneous CD4‐positive lymphoma

Abstract

Cutaneous lymphoma is a disease characterized with massive skin infiltration of lymphoid malignant cells. They commonly express some T-cell markers, such as CD2, CD3, CD4, and CD7, and thus termed as CTCL (cutaneous T cell lymphoma). Here, we present a case with CD56/N-CAM-positive cutaneous lymphoma, which appears lymphocytic morphology and expresses CD4, but does not express CD2, CD3, CD8, CD14, CD16, CD57, and CD20. The most malignant cells contained no distinctive azurophilic granules in the cytoplasm. Southern blot analysis revealed that T cell receptor-beta, gamma, and immunoglobulin heavy chain genes in the cells were in germ-line configurations. Electron microscopic examination showed characteristics of lymphoid cells with higher nucleocytoplasmic ratio and lacked structures typical of other cell types (i.e., epithelial cells, neuroendocrine cells, and mesenchymal cells). Thus, the cells are likely to be immature lymphoid cells. Histological analysis revealed the cells infiltrate mainly into the dermis with angiocentric growth pattern. The clinical course was aggressive, with rapid involvement of bone marrow and central nervous system. These striking features of the patient may represent a novel fraction (CD2-, CD4+, and CD56+) of cutaneous lymphoma.

Complete remission in advanced blastic NK‐cell lymphoma/leukemia in elderly patients using the hyper‐CVAD regimen

“…Furthermore, one of these seven was suffering from pulmonary aspergillosis [17], while another patient's follow-up was limited to 5 months [15]. Twenty-three of the 47 patients who succumbed to their disease failed to attain CR (and hence never experienced disease-free survival) [9,10,[13][14][15]17,[25][26][27][28][29]. Twenty-three others experienced an average disease-free survival of 8.3 months before succumbing to their disease [6,9,14,15,21,30].…”

Optimized immunohistochemical panel to differentiate myeloid sarcoma from blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm

“…Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN), previously known as blastic NK-cell lymphoma or agranular CD4 þ /CD56 þ hematodermic neoplasm, was first described by Adachi et al 1 and originate from precursors of plasmacytoid dendritic cells. [2][3][4][5] BPDCN is often seen in elderly individuals, but a few cases in children are also reported in the literature.…”

What is CD4+CD56+ malignancy and how should it be treated?

“…EBV and human herpesvirus-6 are not detectable. Human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) was found in one case, 9 while others [10][11][12] failed to detect this virus. In general, (latent) viral infection does not seem to play an important role in the pathogenesis of this disease.…”