Mucosa-Associated Lymphoid Tissue of the Thymus
Open Access
- 1 January 2002
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in American Journal of Clinical Pathology
- Vol. 117 (1), 51-56
- https://doi.org/10.1309/g3ac-p7k8-2jnk-8c3u
Abstract
In the thymus, the relationship between lymphofollicular hyperplasia and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT)-type lymphoma is uncertain. We analyzed 14 cases with a diagnosis of thymic follicular hyperplasia in patients with connective tissue disease (n = 2), myasthenia gravis (n = 11), or both (n = 1). In 11 cases, well-defined reactive lymphoid follicles were surrounded by a continuous layer of medullary epithelial cells. A polyclonal rearrangement of the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene (IgH) was observed. In 3 cases, ill-defined lymphoid follicles with sheets of centrocytic-like B cells disrupting the medullary cytokeratin epithelial network were observed on certain sections. These cells expressed the phenotypic features of memory B cells with CD20, CD79a, and bcl-2 positivity and CD5, CD10, CD23, and bcl-6 negativity, and a monoclonal rearrangement of the IgH gene was detected. Appropriate sampling, cytokeratin staining, and molecular analyses may help to identify early MALT-type lymphoma developing in the setting of thymic lymphofollicular hyperplasia.Keywords
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