Hodgkin Lymphoma Presenting as Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis: A Case Report and Review of Published Cases

Abstract

Introduction: Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) is a serious syndrome that occurs in associationwith malignancy, infections and autoimmune diseases.Case presentation: A 30 years old female patient presented with fever, splenomegaly, pancytopenia,hyperferritinemia, hypertriglyceridemia and hemophagocytosis in bone marrow aspirate. She was initiallydiagnosed as HLH. Bone marrow biopsy revealed the presence of Hodgkin lymphoma.Discussion: The most common HLH associated-malignancy is T/natural killer cell lymphoma and lesscommonly diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The combination of HLH and Hodgkin lymphoma is rare. A strong association between Hodgkin lymphoma associated HLH and Epstein Barr virus (EBV) infection hasbeen discussed in published case reports. Hodgkin lymphoma may be a cause of HLH and their relation withEBV has to be investigated.

Keywords

• hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (hlh)
• hodgkin lymphoma
• epstein barr virus (ebv)