Lymphoid neoplasia following connective tissue disease.

A retrospective review was undertaken to ascertain whether there are distinctive histopathologic features of the lymphoid neoplasms that occur in patients with previous connective tissue disease. Of 29 patients studied, 12 had malignant lymphoma with diffuse large-cell cytomorphology. Only 1 of these 12 had an immunoblastic cell type. The remaining 17 patients had neoplasia of a widely diverse nature. Six had lymphocytic lymphoma (one nodular poorly differentiated, three diffuse poorly differentiated, and three diffuse well differentiated), two had Hodgkin's disease, three had plasma cell myeloma, and six had chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Data fail to confirm a relationship between lymphoid proliferations with immunoblastic morphology and connective tissue diseases.