Immunophenotypic characterization of an unusual T-cell lymphoma presenting as anterior uveitis. A clinicopathologic case report
S. H. Goldey, G. A. Stern, D. J. Oblon, N. P. Mendenhall, L. J. Smith and R. E. Duque
Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville 32610-0284.
A 54-year-old woman presented with a unilateral, anterior uveitis that
progressed to hypopyon over 4 months despite treatment with steroids. One
hundred percent of the cells collected from aspirates of the anterior
chamber of the affected eye were morphologically large granular
lymphocytes. The aspirated cells were demonstrated by flow cytometry to be
a uniform population of T lymphocytes with a diploid genome and an S
fraction of 2.3%. On further investigation, the patient was found to have
an extensive abdominal malignant lymphoma with the same immunophenotype but
different morphologic features than the anterior chamber lymphoid
infiltrate. In contrast to the cells in the anterior chamber, the abdominal
tumor was highly aggressive as indicated by the cellular morphologic
features and the S fraction of 43%. DNA hybridization studies of the
abdominal lymphoma demonstrated a T beta 2 T-cell receptor gene
rearrangement. The use of these modern diagnostic methods should facilitate
the diagnosis of intraocular lymphomas and may have important therapeutic
and prognostic implications in the future.
