Search

Abstract: We report on a 5-week-old male infant with recurrent respiratory distress since birth and congenital thymic hyperplasia. Acute life-threatening thymic bleeding apparently from ruptured thymic cysts into the pleural spaces complicated the clinical situation. Thoracotomy and complete thymectomy were performed. Histologic examination revealed normal thymic architecture with cysts of different sizes and an increased thymic weight of 30 g. The combination of true thymic hyperplasia and cyst bleeding in a newborn has not been previously reported and will be discussed in relation to the available literature on respiratory distress due to thymic pathology in childhood. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A mediastinal tumor mass in a 53-year-old woman with the sole complaint of persistent cough was studied and found to be a true thymic hyperplasia associated with a unilocular thymic cyst, felt to be of the congenital type. The bilobed thymus obtained was macroscopically and microscopically normal except for the size (12 × 12 × 3.5 cm) and weight (97 g). It showed normal thymic tissue segregated in lobules separated by adipose septa and with good corticomedullary separation. There were numerous Hassall corpuscles in the medullary portion. The thymus-to-adipose ratio was approximately 80:20. In the anterior aspect of the thymus, there was a 5-cm unilocular cyst, filled with a clear watery fluid, and with smooth and gray white inner surfaces. Microscopically, the cyst was lined by a cubic and low cylindrical nonciliated epithelium with normal-appearing thymic tissue in the cyst wall. This very unusual combination of true thymic hyperplasia and unilocular thymic cyst has not been previously reported in the literature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: CD3+ T-cell large granular lymphocyte (LGL) leukaemia is a mature T-cell neoplasm of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes. Neutropenia represents the most frequent peripheral blood cytopenia associated with CD3+ T-cell LGL leukaemia. A wide variety of diseases associated with LGL leukaemia have been reported, both autoimmune and neoplastic. We describe for the first time the association of true thymic hyperplasia with CD3+ T-cell line LGL leukaemia. The patient presented with severe symptomatic neutropenia. Complete and persistent haematological and molecular remission was induced with an association of low-dose methotrexate and cyclosporin A, followed by thymectomy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]