Reactive Cutaneous Cytophagocytosis in Nocardiosis

Cutaneous nocardiosis, which usually manifests in the form of pustules, abscesses, or subcutaneous nodules, is occasionally found in immunocompromised patients. A 59-yr-old Korean man with myasthenia gravis and thymoma developed nodular skin lesions on his trunk. Histopathologically, abscess formation with a dense infiltrate of neutrophils and many cytophagic histiocytes were observed. Numerous filamentous organisms, which turned out to be Nocardia asteroides by culture, were also found. After sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim therapy, all of the skin lesions rapidly decreased in size, with a marked diminution of the number of cytophagic histiocytes, and cleared up within four months. On reporting a case of cutaneous nocardiosis showing unusual histopathologic findings, we considered that reactive conditions should be included in the differential diagnosis of the cutaneous cytophagocytosis, and that nocardiosis could be one of the diseases showing reactive cytophagocytosis.

T cell rich and histiocyte rich B cell lymphoma--a case report.

We report one case of Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma which was classified as Histiocyte Rich B cell lymphoma on immunocytochemistry. The diagnosis was difficult on fine needle aspiration cytology and routine histopathological examination as the infiltrate was composed of reactive lymphocytes and numerous histiocytes obscuring the lymphoma cell population. The neoplastic cells were positive for CD20(L26-A Pan B marker) and negative for CD15(Leu M1), CD3(Ber H2) and pan T cell markers. The histiocytes were positive for CD3(UCHL-1). The patient had a rapid downhill course and died. The autopsy showed infiltration in the axillary, cervical, mesenteric, para aortic, peri pancreatic and hilar lymph nodes. The liver, spleen, bone marrow and kidney also showed lymphomatous infiltration.