Objective: To analyze the clinical features of 1 case of primary pleural diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and therefore to improve the understanding of this disease.
Methods: The clinical features, auxiliary examinations and diagnosis of a case with DLBCL were reported and the related literatures were reviewed. The literature review was carried out respectively with "primary pleural, lymphoma", as the search terms in Wanfang Data, CNKI and PubMed by December 2013.
Results: A 73 year-old male patient was admitted to the hospital because of chest pain on the left side for 1 month. The main symptoms of the patient were left side chest pain, with occasional cough. Chest CT scan showed left pleural effusion and pleural thickening. Thoracoscopy was performed and revealed multiple sizes of nodules on the visceral and parietal pleura. Pathology study confirmed the diagnosis of DLBCL. The patient was treated with CHOP regimen 3 times. So far, there was no local recurrence. A total of 12 literatures were retrieved from Wanfang Data, CNKI and PubMed, and they were all case reports. There were 8 male and 4 female patients, aging from 12 to 81 years. The main symptoms were chest pain and fever.
Conclusions: Primary pleural DLBCL is a rare disease. It is easily to be misdiagnosed due to non-specific clinical and imaging manifestations. The final diagnosis depends ultimately on pathological biopsy, and thoracoscopy is the most effective method to confirm DLBCL.