A case of bronchus-associated lymphoid tissue(BALT) lymphoma treated with lobectomy

The bronchus-asociated lymphoid tissue(BALT) lymphoma is a low-grade primary malignant lymphoma that originates from bronchus associated lymphoid tissue. A 67-year-old woman was admitted for evaluation of cough sputum, rhinorrhea which had persisted for one month Physical examination showed decreased breathing sound on the left upper lung field. High resolution chest computed tomography demonstrated consolidation which showed air-bronchogram and surrounding ground glass opacity in left upper lobe. These findings implicated inactive tuberculosis, organizing pneumonia, or hronchiolo-alveolar carcinoma. The histologic findings from percutaneous needle aspiration biopsy revealed aggregated atypical small lymphoid cells with lymphoepithelial lesions. With immunohistochemical staining, the atypical lymphoid cells reacted positively with CD 20 antibody and negatively with CD 3 antibody. Thus, we could diagnosed her as a patient with BALT lymphoma. After left upper lobectomy, she has been well without recurrence of the disease for 14 months. In this country of Republic of Korea, it was the 1st case of BALT lymphoma surgically treated when histological diagnosis had been done. Based on this case, we wanted to demonstrate the importance of early histological diagnosis and treatment of BALT lymphoma.