Journal of Blood Medicine (Jun 2024)

Clinical and Genomic Profile of Primary Cranial Neurolymphomatosis

  • Wolf EB,
  • Imperial R,
  • Jiang L,
  • Agarwal AK,
  • Tun HW

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 15
pp. 291 – 303

Abstract

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Emily B Wolf,1 Robin Imperial,1 Liuyan Jiang,2 Amit K Agarwal,3 Han W Tun1 1Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USA; 2Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USA; 3Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USACorrespondence: Han W Tun, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Mayo Clinic Florida, 4500 San Pablo Road S, Jacksonville, FL, 32224, USA, Email [email protected]: Primary cranial neurolymphomatosis (PCNL) is a rare subtype of primary CNS lymphoma (PCNSL) in which infiltrative lymphomatous involvement is confined to cranial nerves. Here, we report a case of PCNL with successful genomic profiling. A 57-year-old male had a lengthy prediagnostic phase spanning approximately 30 months, characterized by multiple episodes of cranial neuropathies managed by steroids. At the time of diagnosis, the patient had right-sided cranial neuropathies involving cranial nerves (CN) V, VI, and VII. Pathological findings of the right cavernous lesion biopsy were consistent with large B-cell lymphoma-infiltrating nerve fibers. The clinical course was aggressive and refractory, characterized by relentless progression with the development of cervical spinal neurolymphomatosis, cerebrospinal fluid involvement, and ependymal and intraparenchymal cerebral involvement, despite multiple lines of therapy, including chemoimmunotherapy, Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, radiation, autologous stem cell transplant, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T), and whole-brain radiation. The patient survived for 22 months from the time of the initial diagnosis and 52 months after the first episode of cranial neuropathy. Next-generation sequencing identified mutations (MYD88, CD79b, and PIM1) that are frequently observed in PCNSL. The unusual findings included a total of 22 mutations involving PIM1, indicating a highly active aberrant somatic hypermutation and two missense CXCR4 mutations. CXCR4 mutations have never been described in PCNSL and may have implications for disease biology and therapeutic interventions. We provide a literature review to further elucidate PCNL.Keywords: DLBCL, cranial nerve, autologous stem cell transplant, CAR-T cell therapy, next generation sequencing

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