Rare variants of Hodgkin's disease of the thymus: Report of two cases and proposal for effective clinical management

Abstract

We treated two patients with rare variants of Hodgkin's disease of the thymus. One was a 17-year-old girl with a thymoma-like shadow on the chest X-rays, an increased erythrocyte sedimentation rate and an elevated eosinophile count. Pathologically, a mixed cellularity variant of thymus Hodgkin's disease was evident. The other patient was 22-year-old girl with evidence of mediastinal tumor on the chest X-rays. Pathological examination revealed Hodgkin's disease of the lymphocyte predominance variety. She also had Von der Haeve syndrome. In both cases, Hodgkin's disease was suspected by scintiscanning, using three kinds of radioisotope,²⁰¹Thallium-chloride,⁶⁷Garium-citrate and⁷⁵Selenomethionine. Radical excision of the lesion plus preoperative and postoperative irradiations were carried out. Both are well 6 and 5 years after the treatment, respectively. We propose a new diagnostic procedure and a method of treatment for such patients.