SEROLOGICAL SIMILARITIES BETWEEN HYPERREACTIVE MALARIAL SPLENOMEGALY AND SPLENIC LYMPHOMA IN WEST-AFRICA

In West Africa hyperreactive malarial splenomegaly (HMS) and splenic l ymphoma with villous lymphocytes (SLVL) are demographically and clinic ally indistinguishable. Determination of lymphocyte clonality is neede d to differentiate clearly between these 2 disorders. To obtain eviden ce to support our hypothesis that HMS and SLVL are aetiologically rela ted we studied the serological profile of malaria-related antibodies i n HMS and SLVL in West Africa. We found that in SLVL total immunoglobu lin M and antimalarial antibody levels were markedly raised, a combina tion which is characteristic of HMS. These findings strongly support a developmental relationship between HMS and SLVL in tropical Africa an d implicate malaria in this process.