Transformation of hairy cell leukemia to high-grade lymphoma: a case report and review of the literature

The coexistence of hairy cell leukemia (HCL) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is extremely rare. In the few reports demonstrating such coexistence, the relationship between the 2 entities was mostly inconclusive. We report a case of HCL that transformed to large cell lymphoma. This case has been followed for more than 4 years with immunohistochemical, flow cytometric, and molecular genetic studies on multiple bone marrow biopsy specimens, a splenectomy specimen, and a lymph node biopsy. In our case, the immunophenotype and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase stain confirmed that the large cell lymphoma was of HCL origin. The markedly increased Ki-67 staining (proliferation fraction) in the lymph node biopsy specimen compared to the earlier splenectomy specimen indicated the transformation of a low-grade leukemia to a high-grade lymphoma. The overexpression of p53 in the lymph node implies that p53 mutation was probably involved in the pathogenesis of HCL transformation.