Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or/and thyroid cancer in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Objectives Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is an aggressive and highly heterogeneous malignancy. However, its pathogenesis remains not so clear, since other diseases like thyroid problems have recently been reported to accompany with DLBCL. Therefore, we evaluated the association between thyroid diseases and DLBCL, aiming to figure out their relationship and find valuable clues for the treatment of DLBCL. Method A total of 214 DLBCL patients who all had thyroid ultrasound examinations as part of the routine work-up were collected in this study from our hospital between 2010 and 2014. They were classified into three groups according to the results of thyroid ultrasound examination: Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT), suspected thyroid cancer (TC) and thyroid nodules/normal groups. We comparatively analyzed the clinical characteristics, treatment response and prognosis among the three groups. Results Patients with HT, accounting for 18.7% (40/214) of all DLBCLs, were predominantly elderly females. They presented with the early-stage germinal center B cell-like (GCB) DLBCL and showed a better response to anti-DLBCL therapy than the other two groups. Patients with suspected TC accounted for 8.4% (18/214) of all DLBCLs, among which 4 patients were pathologically diagnosed with TC from the 6 patients who underwent thyroid biopsy. Additionally, there was no statistically significant difference in survival among the three groups, probably due to the short follow-up. Conclusion The high concurrency of DLBCL and thyroid diseases indicated an association between them. We thus propose that thyroid examination is necessary for DLBCL patients.