A rare diagnostic case of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma

Abstract

Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma is a malignancy of mature T-cells. A 45 years old Sudanese female with generalized lymphadenomegalyreferred from Tayba hospital to Al-tayseer reference medical cent in histopathology and cytology laboratory department (Sudan) for her lymph node histopathology analysis. A surgical lymph node biopsy for histopathology analysis stained by H&E was performed and sections showed effacement of normal architecture of lymph node with disappearance of follicles and germinal center composed of polymorphic infiltrate of small tumour cells and large tumour cells. The small tumour cells showed irregular nuclei and clear cytoplasm. In this case report, we state that the delay of diagnosis was mainly a consequence of an insufficient clinical history, which led to an incomplete histological analysis, delay of reporting and need for second opinions for interpretation. We also strongly recommend that to obtain an accurate and precise diagnosis for AITL, PAS stain should be performed firstly to recognize the capillary invasion which facilitate the early diagnosis.