Considerable response of thalidomide in plasmablastic lymphoma: a case report and literature review

Plasmablastic lymphoma (PBL) is a relatively rare and high grade B cell lymphoma. It often occurs in oral cavity of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, but it can also be seen in HIV-negative patients. PBL presents a therapeutic challenge to clinicians due to its aggressive clinical feature and high relapse rates. No standard treatment guidelines are formulated. Conventional chemotherapy are widely used similar to other aggressive lymphomas and novel drugs are tried. The new options for PBL include bortezomib, lenalidomide and thalidomide. Here we report a case of non-HIV-associated intestinal PBL, who had failed to respond to several other lines of chemotherapy and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, achieved complete response after thalidomide monotherapy with no obvious side effect observed. We conclude that thalidomide could induce considerable response even when other regimens fail. Thalidomide is a safe and efficacious therapeutic choice for PBL that should be explored in further studies.