Successful Diagnosis by Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgical Lung Biopsy in a Case of Progressive Primary Pulmonary Extranodal Natural Killer/T-cell Lymphoma, Nasal Type: A Case Report

• Published in: Curēus (Palo Alto, CA) Vol. 15; no. 1; p. e34227
• Main Authors: Anai, Satoshi, Gushiken, Hiroki, Chinen, Shigeki, Gakiya, Akira, Kiyuna, Masaya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Cureus Inc 26.01.2023; Cureus
• Subjects: Antibodies; Antigens; Biopsy; Blood; Case reports; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Cytokines; Cytomegalovirus; Dehydrogenases; Disease; Enzymes; Epstein-Barr virus; Flow cytometry; Hospitals; Hyponatremia; Internal Medicine; Lungs; Lymphocytes; Lymphoma; Medical diagnosis; Neutrophils; Oncology; Oxygen saturation; Pathology; Polymerase chain reaction; Proteins; Pulmonology; Sarcoidosis; case report; diffuse ground-glass opacities; flow cytometry; video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery; primary pulmonary extranodal natural killer/t-cell lymphoma nasal type
• ISSN: 2168-8184; 2168-8184
• DOI: 10.7759/cureus.34227

Malignant pulmonary lymphoma is very rare and the majority of which are B-cell lymphomas. Since primary pulmonary extranodal natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type (ENKL) is difficult to diagnose and associated with poor prognosis and aggressive course, some cases are diagnosed at the postmortem autopsy. We report a case of a 53-year-old man with primary pulmonary ENKL diagnosed by video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) lung biopsy. This case explains the importance of VATS lung biopsy and in-depth evaluation, including flow cytometry, chromosome, genetic, and immunostaining tests, when primary pulmonary malignant lymphoma is suspected.