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Case report
Primary leptomeningeal T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma: a rare cause of chronic meningitis
  1. Arunmozhimaran Elavarasi1,
  2. Rohit Bhatia1,
  3. Sudheer Arava2 and
  4. Lalit Kumar3
  1. 1Neurology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi, India
  2. 2Pathology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi, India
  3. 3Medical Oncology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi, India
  1. Correspondence to Dr Arunmozhimaran Elavarasi; arun_ela{at}yahoo.com

Abstract

Primary leptomeningeal lymphomatosis is a rare disease with only a few hundred cases reported. We present a patient with a relatively short history of 25 days of headache followed by diplopia who was found to have primary leptomeningeal T-cell lymphoma without evidence of systemic lymphoma. The patient responded well to chemotherapy along with intrathecal medication and cranial irradiation and returned to a completely normal state of health. Not all chronic meningitis is due to infection or self-limiting inflammatory causes. It is important to consider lymphoma as a differential even in the absence of constitutional features such as loss of weight, appetite, night sweats, lymphadenopathy or hepatosplenomegaly. T-cell lymphoma with only Central Nervous system (CNS) involvement is a rare cause of chronic meningitis, which is eminently amenable to treatment and is fatal if missed.

  • neurooncology
  • neurology

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Footnotes

  • Contributors AE contributed to data collection and writing the manuscript. RB contributed to diagnosis, management of the case and overseeing manuscript writing. SA contributed to diagnosis of the case. LK contributed to management of the case.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Patient consent for publication Next of kin consent obtained.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.