Extrahepatic Hodgkin's disease with intrahepatic cholestasis: report of two cases.

Liver is involved in about 5-8% of newly diagnosed Hodgkin's disease (HD) cases. The incidence reaches up to 50-60% in postmortem studies. In the literature only a few cases of idiopathic cholestatic jaundice have been described without an apparent cause and a paraneoplastic etiology has been suggested. We report 2 cases with HD presenting with obstructive jaundice without obvious liver involvement. The first case died soon after diagnosis; the second case received chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and she is well at 26 months' follow-up. Extrahepatic HD with intrahepatic cholestasis is an extremely rare situation without an established approach. Such cases like the present ones may help to understand the pathogenesis of the liver involvement of HD and determine the best management of these cases.