Diffuse Immunoblastic Sarcoma from Benign Lymphoid Proliferation

Excerpt

To the editor: The recent report of B-cell lymphomas in homosexual men (1) documents an important aspect of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. All six patients described had B-cell lymphomas, and five had a monoclonal light chain surface immunoglobulin. This finding supports the premise that in the background of immunosuppression, a stimulus to B cells can trigger neoplastic growth of a single clone. This phenomenon has been described recently by Cleary and colleagues (2) in patients who had cardiac transplantation; these ten patients with lymphoma also had a monoclonal proliferation of malignant B cells. However, lymphomas that arise in immunosuppressed patients