Exophthalmos and ocular pain as clinical debut of intracranial Hodgkin's lymphoma at diagnosis.

ABSTRACT

Intracranial involvement in Hodgkin's Lymphoma (HL) is extremely unusual, especially at the time of diagnosis. Because of its non-specific radiological behaviour, it can be confused with more common entities with a radically different prognosis. Pathologically, large and bi-nucleated cells, called Reed-Sternberg cells, embedded in an inflammatory network. In this report we describe the clinical case of a patient, with no medical history, with left ocular pain and exophthalmos as presetation of intracranial HL at diagnosis and review the most current literature. Intracranial involvement is often associated with extracranial disease. Therefore, a systemic study including body computed tomography, bone marrow biopsy and ophthalmological evaluation is necessary. Intracranial lesions respond favourably to treatment and the prognosis depends on the extracranial involvement. To date, there is no standardised management scheme for these patients. For us, the primary role of surgery in this context is to perform a biopsy to confirm the histological diagnosis.