PRIMARY LYMPHOMA OF THE KIDNEY IN THE ACQUIRED-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-SYNDROME

An increased incidence of lymphoma has been reported in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Malignant lymphomas that devel op within this setting of impaired immune surveillance have distinctiv e clinical, histologic, and molecular biologic characteristics. Histol ogically, the majority of these lymphomas are small noncleaved cell or immunoblastic lymphomas, and are B-cell phenotype by immunophenotypic and immunoglobulin gene rearrangement studies. In contrast with malig nant lymphoma occurring in the general population, extranodal origin i s common in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome-related non-Hodgkin's l ymphomas, with the central nervous system, bone marrow, gastrointestin al tract, and liver being the most common sites. To the best of our kn owledge, there has been no description in the literature of primary re nal lymphoma occurring in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. We report an unusual case of primary non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (diffuse B-cell immunoblastic type) of the kidney in a patient with th e acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.