Granulomatosis after autologous stem cell transplantation in nonHodgkin lymphoma – a review of literature and our experience

Abstract

Sarcoidosis before and after treatment of malignancy is an important differential diagnosis to be distinguished from lymphoma. Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and aggressive follicular lymphoma are being staged and treatment effect is evaluated with PET-CT scans. Nevertheless, post-treatment PET-CT positive lymph nodes should always be examined histologically prior to any further treatment decision to avoid unnecessary toxic procedures. We report three cases of aggressive lymphoma after autologous stem cell transplantation with positive lymph nodes on PET-CT, which were histologically diagnosed as sarcoidosis/granulomatosis. In the literature, we found that false positive lymph nodes were more common after allogeneic than after autologous transplantation.