title: [Reactive histiocytosis variant of tuberculous lymphadenitis].
abstract: Paraffin blocks from 38 cases with superficial lymph nodes exhibiting reactive histiocytosis with debris-like necrosis and neutrophil infiltration were studied by means of polymerase chain reaction for amplifying the repetitive DNA sequence (123pb fragment) specific for mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.TB-PCR), BCG immunohistochemistry (BCG-IHC) as well as acid fast stain (AF) for M.TB/MOTT (mycobacterium other than tuberculosis). The comprehensive positive rate of the three methods was 52.6% (20/38 cases) and the separate positive rates for M.TB-PCR, BCG-IHC and AF being 50%, 26% and 0.8% respectively. The results prove that (1) half of the reactive histiocytosis of lymph nodes selected in this paper are related to tuberculosis infection, i.e., some tuberculous lymphadenitis may appear as a variant of reactive histiocytosis; and (2) PCR technique is a very valuable method for making the etiologic diagnosis of tuberculous lymphadenitis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Tianjin Medical College.
authors.forename: N X
authors.initials: NX
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bu
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D015618:Histiocytosis, Sinus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D006965:Hyperplasia; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology; D014388:Tuberculosis, Lymph Node / Q000473:pathology*