Nonrandom Chromosome Abnormalities in Angioimmunoblastic

Cytogenetic and pathologic studies were performed on six patients with angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy (AILD). All six had diffuse lymphadenopathy; five had fever, four had weight loss, and four had a diffuse erythematous rash. All patients except one had a polyclonal elevation of immunoglobulin. All patients had diagnostic findings in lymph node (IN) and bone marrow (BM) biopsies. Two patients died of progressive AILD; one patient died after transformation of AILD to immunoblastic sarcoma (IBS); one patient died of gastrointestinal bleeding of unknown cause. The remaining two patients, who have achieved complete remission with intensive chemotherapy, are alive 20 and 8 mo after the diagnosis; one of these had AILD and the other, both AILD and lBS. Despite diagnostic BM biopsy findings, none of the patients had chromosome abnormalities in their BM cells. In studying IN cells of 5 patients. however. we found chromosome abnormalities in each;