The authors describe a diagnostically challenging case where a patient with previous squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsil developed a putative second primary squamous cell carcinoma in the lung (stage IV with lung and bone metastases). During palliative chemotherapy several episodes of severe infection occurred, eventually resulting in abscess formation in the hip and brain. The dilemma of dis...

AIM The purpose of this study was to assess the prognosis of patients with tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma with different stages of lymph node involvement and to determine the best elective neck dissection for those cases. STUDY DESIGN Case series. MATERIAL AND METHOD 51 patients with tonsillar tumors were treated between 1992 and 2001. The incidence of different tumor-node-metastasis sta...

There are two principal indications for tonsillectomies or ablation of palatal tonsillar tissue: repeated episodes of tonsillitis (at least 5 times per year in two successive years) and obstructive tonsillar tissue as well as another, more rare, indication, highly asymmetrical blocs of tonsillar tissue that may suggest presence of a lymphoma. When tonsils are obstructive in patients suffering f...

After the transition from the acute to the chronic phase of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, complement mediates long-term storage of virions in germinal centers (GC) of lymphoid tissue. The contribution of particular complement receptors (CRs) to virus trapping in GC was studied on tonsillar specimens from HIV-infected individuals. CR2 (CD21) was identified as the main binding sit...

A case of unilateral tonsillar enlargement as a benign hyperplastic reaction to a Hodgkin's lymphoma at level II in the ipsilateral cervical lymph nodes is reported. In the traditional teaching of head and neck surgery, unilateral tonsillar hypertrophy is presumed to be neoplastic until proven otherwise. This case demonstrated that the absence of neoplasia in an enlarged tonsil does not exclude...

An ectopic tonsil is defined as tonsillar tissue that develops in areas outside of the four major tonsil groups: the palatine, lingual, pharyngeal, and tubal tonsils. The occurrence of tonsillar tissue in the oral cavity in ectopic locations, its prevalence, and its developmental mechanisms that belong to its formation remain unclear. In this report, we describe a rare case of bilateral symmetr...

To assess the frequency of malignancy-associated 30-bp deletion variants of the latent membrane protein 1 (LMP-1) in benign conditions, a comparative sequence analysis was done using samples from 20 American children with acute infectious mononucleosis and 16 Swiss children with chronic tonsillar hyperplasia. The 30-bp deletion variant (LMP-1-del) was present in 66% of patients (12/20 with infe...

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) persists for life in the infected host. Little is known about EBV reactivation and regulation of virus persistence in healthy individuals. We examined tonsils of chronic tonsillitis patients to detect EBV transcripts, EBV genomes and lytic proteins. LMP1 transcripts were observed in 11 of 15 specimens and BZLF1 transcripts were detected in six. Multiple copies of EBV ge...