Secondary neoplasm to non-hodgkin lymphoma treatment manifesting as a cancer of unknown primary: the first case in literature

Abstract

Introduction: Cancer of unknown primary (CUP) is a tumour metastasis with no detectable primary origin. A secondary neoplasm (SN) is defined as a tumour secondary to a prior tumour treatment and has no histological relation to that primary tumour. Case presentation: The authors report a case of a 72-year-old female patient who presented with back pain and had a history of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) treated with RCHOP 12 years ago. MRI showed a compression fracture in T5 and T7 vertebrae, while the PET/computed tomography (CT) only showed hypermetabolic lytic bone lesions in these vertebrae. Pathological examination of a biopsy of these lesions suggested metastatic breast cancer, but the mammography was normal. The above clinical description indicates that our case is a SN to RCHOP treatment manifested as a cancer of unknown origin. Discussion: CUP is diagnosed when all screening procedures fail to find the original tumour. On the other hand, the literature showed that RCHOP treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphoma has a 0.68% chance of causing a SN. After an extensive literature search, we found that our case, which has the combination of both CUP and SN, is the first documented case. Conclusion: This case suggests that cancer patients who received chemical or radiological treatment should be screened more carefully on the long term as it is possible to developed secondary neoplasms without a primary tumour in areas difficult to diagnose with traditional screening tools.