Listeria monocytogenes bacteremia mimicking the systemic metastasis of adrenal cancer: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Listeria monocytogenes is a causative agent of food poisoning and is also known to cause invasive diseases, such as bacteremia, meningitis, and encephalitis, in neonates, elderly and immunocompromised patients. However, the clinical course of a multi-organ disseminated disease secondary to bacteremia has been rarely reported. CASE PRESENTATION: A 76-year-old woman undergoing immunosuppressive therapy for rheumatoid arthritis presented to our outpatient clinic with a chief complaint of weight loss. Computed tomography showed a left adrenal mass, enlarged lymph nodes, and multiple intrahepatic nodules. Positron emission tomography demonstrated accumulation of fluorodeoxyglucose F18 in the adrenal mass, lymph nodes, hepatic nodules, and bones, leading to the suspicion of systemic metastasis of adrenal cancer. She subsequently developed a fever. Blood culture results led to the diagnosis of Listeria monocytogenes bacteremia. Percutaneous needle biopsy of the adrenal lesion revealed no malignant findings. After extended treatment with antimicrobial agents, the fever resolved, along with the disappearance of the systemic lesions. CONCLUSIONS: This case shows that listeriosis can lead to lesions in the adrenal gland, which can exhibit clinical presentation that is difficult to differentiate from malignancy on imaging studies.

[Acute lymphoblastic leukemia with t(4;11)(q21;q23) after iodine-131 treatment for thyroid cancer].

A 49-year-old Japanese woman was diagnosed on March 1996 as having thyroid cancer with lung metastasis. Following a total thyroidectomy, she was treated with a total dose of 350 mCi iodine-131 (131I) for metastatic thyroid cancer. Four years later she returned to our hospital under the chief complaint of subcutaneous bleeding. Hematological examinations revealed marked leukocytosis associated with anemia and thrombocytopenia. A bone marrow aspiration showed a hypercellular marrow consisting of 90% blasts negatively stained by myeloperoxidase. Immunophenotyping of the blasts indicated they were CD19, 34, HLA-DR positive but CD3, 10, 13 negative. She was given the diagnosis of pro-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia (pro-B ALL). Cytogenetic analysis showed a chromosomal aberration t(4; 11)(q21; q23) and MLL-AF4 chimeric gene mRNA was detected by RT-PCR analysis. She had never been exposed to any kind of chemoradiotherapy other than 131I therapy and her leukemia showed a t(4; 11) chromosomal aberration and no expression of CD10 on the blasts, which are the characteristics frequently found in therapy-related pro-B ALL patients, suggesting a relationship between the development of pro-B ALL with t(4; 11) and 131I therapy. Although leukemia has been recognized as a late uncommon complication after 131I therapy for thyroid cancer, to the best of our knowledge this is the first patient who developed ALL with t(4 ;11) after 131I therapy among patients with thyroid cancer.

A retrospective clinical analysis of Japanese patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma not otherwise specified: Hokkaido Hematology Study Group.

Peripheral T-cell lymphoma not otherwise specified (PTCL-NOS) comprises a group of heterogeneous lymphomas that do not fit any other identified PTCL-subgroup and show poor prognosis. To clarify clinical aspects of Japanese PTCL-NOS patients, the Hokkaido Hematology Study Group conducted a multicenter retrospective analysis. The median age of the 107 patients (male 65.4 %) was 67 years. The majority (82.4 %) had stage III/IV disease. Following the international prognostic index, 65.7 % were categorized as high intermediate or high risk. Primary chemotherapy was selected in 96 (90 %) patients, 86 of whom received anthracycline regimens. Sixteen patients received high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell transplantation. Forty-eight (52 %) of the 92 evaluable patients achieved complete remission (CR) or CR/unconfirmed after the primary treatment, in which 22 (46 %) relapsed. The estimated 5-year overall survival (OS) of all patients was 35 %. Three independent risk factors (RFs) associated with OS, bulky disease (hazard ratio HR = 5.324; p = 0.019), age >60 years (HR = 3.015; p = 0.025), and platelet count less than 10 × 10(4)/µL (HR = 3.999; p = 0.036), were identified in a multivariate analysis. Using these three RFs, the OS curves were significantly stratified into three risk groups (low risk, 0 RFs, 3-year-OS 72 %; intermediate risk, one RF, 30 %; high risk, two or three RFs, 0 %; p = 0.0005). These findings may provide valuable information for the management of Japanese PTCL-NOS patients.