Immune Modulation by Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in a Patient with Two Primary Intestinal T-Cell Lymphomas and Long-Standing Celiac Disease

Celiac.com 04/13/2010 - A team of clinicians recently described a case of immune modulation by non-Hodgkin lymphoma in a patient with two primary intestinal T-Cell lymphomas and long-standing celiac disease.

F. Mühr-Wilkenshoff, M. Friedrich, H. D. Foss, M. Hummel, M. Zeitz, and S. Daum made up the research team. They are variously affiliated with the  Medical Clinic I, Gastroenterology, Rheumatology and Infectious Diseases, and with the Department of Pathology, Charité of the Campus Benjamin Franklin of University Medicine Berlin, Germany.

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About 20–30% of all non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) are gastrointestinal in nature. Of these gastrointestinal lymphomas, about 20–30% occur in small intestine

The clinical team recently reported the case of a 72-year-old patient who had been diagnosed with celiac disease when he was 52-years old. The man had not followed a gluten-free diet, yet showed no evidence of enteropathy or celiac-associated antibodies, but still developed a jejunal T-cell lymphoma.

Doctors resected the lymphoma due to perforation and treated the patient with four courses of IMVP-16. The patient began and maintained a strict gluten-free diet.

Two years later, the patient appeared with weight loss and a clonally divergent refractory sprue type II with loss of antigen (CD8; T-cell receptor-) expression in intraepithelial lymphocytes.

At this time, he showed high titers of celiac-associated antibodies, although he was on a strict GFD.

The research team notes that the missing enteropathy under a gluten-containing diet supports the idea of immune suppression in malignant diseases, especially non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

They also note that the fact that, even while maintaining a strict gluten-free diet, the patient developed refractory sprue type II, an early form of another independent T-cell lymphoma, along with celiac-associated antibodies, suggests that clonal intraepithelial lymphocytes might be stimulating antibody production.

Thus, they conclude that isolated detection of celiac-associated antibodies in patients with celiac disease does not prove that patients have deviated from their gluten-free diets.

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