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Donor lymphocyte infusion for extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma, nasal type, relapsed after allogeneic hematopoietic SCT

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 46, pages 1270–1271 (2011)Cite this article

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Extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma, nasal type (ENKL), is a rare type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma derived from natural killer (NK) cells in most cases and is closely associated with EBV.1 Nasal ENKL of limited stage has a relatively good prognosis when treated with high-dose radiotherapy with chemotherapy; however, in refractory or relapsed cases, the prognosis is dismal.2 Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) has been performed for a limited number of cases of ENKL, which led to a cure in some.3 Graft-vs-lymphoma (GVL) effects are possible in these cases, although anti-lymphoma effects of drugs or irradiation in the conditioning regimens are not excluded.

We describe a patient with ENKL who relapsed after allogeneic HCT and had a durable response to donor lymphocyte infusions (DLI), clearly showing a GVL effect. A 29-year-old Japanese man was admitted to our hospital because of recurrent ENKL. He had had a history of chronic sinusitis for 3 years. A biopsy of a left nasal tumor had been performed 6 months earlier. He was diagnosed with ENKL from the histologically characteristic morphology with positivity for cytoplasmic CD3 epsilon, CD56 and EBV. His clinical stage was IIE of the Ann Arbor classification, and he received radiotherapy at 50 Gy and consecutive CHOP therapy for a total of three courses. He showed a partial response; then a high fever and a right facial palsy developed. He was diagnosed with recurrence of ENKL in the right parotid gland by biopsy and referred to us for further therapies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hematology Division, Second Department of Internal Medicine, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan

    T Ito, H Makishima, H Nakazawa, Y Senoo, N Senoo & F Ishida

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  1. T Ito
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  2. H Makishima
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  3. H Nakazawa
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  4. Y Senoo
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  6. F Ishida
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Correspondence to F Ishida.

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Ito, T., Makishima, H., Nakazawa, H. et al. Donor lymphocyte infusion for extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma, nasal type, relapsed after allogeneic hematopoietic SCT. Bone Marrow Transplant 46, 1270–1271 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2010.284

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