Primary pulmonary lymphoma disguised as asthma.

Primary pulmonary lymphomas (PPL) only constitute 4% of extra-nodal, non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL), less than 1% of NHL in general, and between 0.5% and 1% of malignant pulmonary neoplasms. Fifty-eight to 87% of cases of this extremely uncommon disease are low-grade B-cell lymphomas and 11%-19% are high-grade or large B-cell lymphomas. The prognosis for.high-grade or large B-cell lymphomas is worse than for low-grade lymphomas; respiratory and general symptoms are usually present. However asthmatic symptoms are not often found in their clinic. We report the case of a 49-year old woman with resistant asthma clinic in the form of wheezing, dyspnea and non-productive painless cough; associated with an irregular lobulated mass with air bronchograms in the lower lobe of the right lung. Histological diagnosis showed a pattern of high-grade B-cell lymphoma and all asthmatic symptoms disappeared following gross total resection of this lesion.