Myelodysplastic syndrome and non Hodgkin lymphoma.

Four cases are available to date: an indolent B-cell follicular lymphoma, a non Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) not otherwise specified (NOS), a refractory anemia (RA) possibly related to the treatment of a multiple myeloma diagnosed 4 years before, and a refractory anemia with excess of blasts in transformation (RAEB-t) evolving rapidly towards an acute myeloid leukemia (AML). There were 2 male and 2 female patients, aged 70, 70, 76 and ? (Fan et al., 1988; Avanzi et al., 1989; Fan and Rizkalla, 2003; Adeyinka et al., 2007).

Data on (short term) evolution is only available in the two myeloid cases: the RA case remained well 4 months after diagnosis, while the RAEB-t/AML case died shortly after diagnosis.

The anomaly is found in heterogeneous diseases, but the cases present some surprisingly similar cytogenetic features.