Sinonasal T-cell Lymphoma and Wegener's Granulomatosis: Aspects in Early Differential Diagnosis

The clinical course of 12 patients with sinonasal T-cell lymphoma retrospectively diagnosed using in situ hybridization for Epstein-Barr virus RNA was compared with that of 10 recently treated patients with Wegener's granulomatosis (WG) in the upper airways. In particular, we studied the presenting signs and symptoms of both diseases, which commonly offer a problem in differential diagnosis at the clinical and pathological level. A bimodal age distribution was suggested in both T-cell lymphoma and WG; five patients with T-cell lymphoma developed disease prior to 40 years of age. Four of the 12 lymphoma patients had a history of “chronic rhinitis” for several years before developing mucosal ulcerations, which were initially unilateral, as opposed to the bilateral ulcerations in early sinonasal WG. Two lymphoma patients had swelling of the nasal dorsum and cheek. In contrast to the WG patients, cases of T-cell lymphoma did not exhibit associated clinical signs of arthritis, conjunctivitis, pulmonary lesions, or nephritis in the early stage of the disease. Nine of the patients with T-cell lymphoma presenting as a sinonasal lesion developed disseminated disease, variably including infiltrates in intestine, lung, CNS, and skin. Four of these patients died from gastrointestinal complications of their disease. We conclude that unilateral ulcerative or hemorrhagic polypoid mucosal lesions in the sinonasal area are suggestive of lymphoma rather than WG, and nonspecific symptoms, at least in Western patients, may be present as early as the second or third decade of life. A biopsy specimen containing T lymphocytes positive for the EBV ribonucleoprotein EBER1 on in situ hybridization offers reliable confirmation of T-cell lymphoma and is of differential diagnostic value against WG.