title: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome presenting as childhood non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
abstract: Two children with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) as the presenting illness of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are described. There was a delay in diagnosing the underlying AIDS in both cases. In the first case, an 18-month-old boy with stage IV, high-grade,T-cell NHL, the diagnosis of underlying AIDS was suspected only when he developed recurrent and profound opportunistic infection during chemotherapy. The second case, an eight-month-old female infant presented initially with hepatosplenomegaly and thrombocytopenia of undetermined cause. She had progressive abdominal distension and swelling of her right eye one year later due to high grade B-cell NHL. She was later found to be sero-positive for HIV during pre-chemotherapy screening. As the prevalence of HIV infection continues to increase, HIV infection should be considered in the differential diagnoses of childhood hepatosplenomegaly and thrombocytopenia, and as a possible underlying cause of childhood cancer, especially NHL.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics, University of Malaya Medical Centre, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. leews@ummc.edu.my
authors.forename: W S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: T L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Koh
authors.forename: W A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Ariffin
authors.forename: H P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D017809:Fatal Outcome; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D016483:Lymphoma, AIDS-Related / Q000209:etiology*; D016393:Lymphoma, B-Cell / Q000209:etiology*; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000209:etiology*; D016399:Lymphoma, T-Cell / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male