Intravascular Lymphomatosis Mimicking Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis: A Case Report

• Main Authors: Yung-Hsiang Hsu, Bo-Yuan Tseng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2005-02-01
• Series: Kaohsiung Journal of Medical Sciences
• Subjects: intravascular lymphomatosis; disseminated encephalomyelitis
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1607551X09702840

We describe the clinical, radiologic, and postmortem findings in a 49-year-old woman with intravascular lymphomatosis. The patient presented with progressive limb weakness followed by progressive disseminated cerebral neurologic symptoms. Disseminated encephalomyelitis was suspected due to the clinical and radiologic findings. Steroid pulse therapy and intravenous immunoglobulin were given but did not help. The patient died of multiple organ failure 3 months after the onset of symptoms. A diagnosis of disseminated intravascular large B-cell lymphomatosis was established based on findings from histopathology and immunohistochemistry studies on autopsy specimens of the brain and other visceral organs collected postmortem.