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Background: The treatment of lymphoproliferative diseases requires extensive histological, immunohistochemical, and cytogenetic diagnosis. The aim of this study was to analyze the results of 66 laparoscopic procedures in the diagnosis, staging, and restaging of hematological malignancies localized in the abdominal cavity., Methods: Between July 1993 and March 1998, 64 consecutive patients (28 male and 36 female; mean age 46.6 years, range 7 to 69) with diagnosed or suspected lymphoproliferative diseases were referred for primary diagnosis or reassessment and for staging/restaging., Results: Sixty-two out of 66 procedures (93.9%) were completed laparoscopically., Conclusions: The minimally invasive approach, in the management of lymphoproliferative diseases, is able not only to provide an adequate specimen for proper diagnostic techniques, but also, when compared with open surgery, to offer a large number of advantages.

There is a wealth of experiences concerning cancer and leukemia induced in human populations by radiation. The contribution of the nuclear industry to the radiation exposure of the general population is small, but there is the risk of catastrophic accidents causing a large number of deaths. The authors describe the case of a 48 year old black man accidentally exposed to the effects of radiations during the nuclear disaster of Chernobyl in 1986. The patient showed, many years later, a predominantly cutaneous high-grade T cell lymphoma, which was refractory to traditional treatments but sensitive to high doses of a recombinant interferon. Unluckily the patient died, six months later, because of autoinfection overwhelming. The goal of the authors is again to ask to reflect on the risk of the use of nuclear power and to debate the possible choice of the still experimental treatments.

We examined 245 lymph node biopsies of subjects possibly suffering from systemic lymphopathy, in which non-invasive means did not allow a certain diagnosis. The parameters considered are: histological finding, age of patients at the time of diagnosis, presence of general symptoms, location of the superficial lymph nodes concerned, collateral tests usually performed, familiarity. The significance of differences between the main disease groups has been checked by the usual statistical methods. Our data are generally consistent with the diagnostic criteria commonly accepted in the literature, except for some details: e. g. in Hodgkin's disease the distribution of patient ages at the time of first diagnosis shows a single peak (unimodal), instead of two, as described in other countries. The involvement of supraclavicular nodes in chronic aspecific lymphopathies is less frequent than in systemic lymphomas. Our experience has widely confirmed the indications and usefulness of lymph node biopsy for hematological diagnosis.

Signet ring cell lymphoma is a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, characterized by neoplastic lymphoid signet ring cells very similar to epithelial mucin producing cells. We describe here a case of signet ring cell lymphoma in which the immunophenotypic markers of signet ring cells parallel those of plasma cells, being intensively T10+ (CD 38), weakly HLA-DR+, and To15 (CD 22) and T200 (CD 45) negative. The morphologic and immunohistochemical features of the case and the main differential diagnosis are preceded by a review of the literature.