HISTOPATHOLOGICAL FEATURES OF CYTOMEGALOV IRUS LYMPHADENITIS IN IMMUNOCOMPETENT A PATIENTS - A REPORT OF 7 CASES

The authors report seven cases of cytomegalovirus lymphadenitis in app arently immunocompetent patients. One patient presented with an infect ious mononucleosis-like illness. The main presentation of the others w as isolated cervical lymphadenopathies. The lymph node pathology showe d aspecific lymphoid hyperplasia, resembling the human immunodeficienc y virus related lymphadenopathy, associated with diagnostic inclusion cells. Infected cells were confined to areas of monocytoid B cell hype rplasia in all cases whereas exceptionally observed in germinal center s. Because of their variable appearance, serial sectioning was frequen tly necessary to disclose their characteristic features. In all cases, immunohistochemistry using an anti-cytomegalovirus antibody was posit ive and revealed more infected cells than detected by morphology alone . Except for the endothelial cell, the nature of infected cells remain ed undetermined. An alteration of the antigenic expression as a conseq uence of cell infection might be responsible for immunohistochemistry failure in the cell characterization.