Polyarthritis in immunoblastic lymphadenopathy

✍ Scribed by Richard J. Raskin; Joseph T. Tesar; Oliver J. Lawless

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1982
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 585 KB
• Volume: 25
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780251215

✦ Synopsis

Immunoblastic lymphadenopathy is a lymphocytic proliferative disorder of uncertain etiology and pathogenesis. A characteristic lymph node histology with a varied clinical expression has been demonstrated in several large reviews (1-3). Some patients have features suggestive of systemic autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjogren's syndrome, vasculitis, and mixed cryoglobulinemia (4-7). We report here a patient with immunoblastic lymphadenopathy whose clinical manifestations included a deforming inflammatory polyarthritis, lymphadenopathy, fever, diarrhea, weight loss, pleuritis, pericarditis, interstitial pulmonary infiltrates, urticaria1 rashes, and an episode of disseminated intravascular coagulation.

Case Report. A 22-year-old black woman came to Walter Reed Army Medical Center 10 months after the onset of a multisystem disease manifested by fever, anorexia, diarrhea, a 30-pound weight loss, and symmetric polyarthritis. There had been no antecedent viral infection or history of drug ingestion.