[Hodgkin's disease developing in the course of a chronic liver disease with ulcerative colitis immunosuppressed with azathioprine].

A case of a 49 year old patient suffering from ulcerative colitis and chronic hepatitis with cirrothic transformation is presented who under prolonged immunosuppressive treatment with azathioprine 50 mg daily and 10 mg daily of prednisone developed Hodgkins disease whose diagnosis was at the autopsy. The association between hepatic cirrhosis and lymphoproliferative disorders such as lymphosarcoma and lymphatic leukemia were already described (19,20). Recently, an article was published on a similar case to ours (23) in which the patient, suffering from chronic hepatopathy submitted to azathioprine and corticoids, developed Hodgkin's disease. The link between ulcerative colitis, the chronic hepatopathy and the development of Hodgkin's disease that could have arisen as a consequence of the prolonged immunosuppressive treatment are discussed. The apparition of malignancies in patients submitted to immunosuppression owing to renal transplantation are compared with the apparition of malignancies in patients submitted to immunosuppression because of a number of other diseases.