Primary Pulmonary MALT Lymphoma: An Atypical Presentation

Abstract

Primary pulmonary lymphomas are rare neoplastic diseases consisting of abnormal proliferation of lymphoid cells affecting the lungs without detectable extrapulmonary involvement. Patients can be asymptomatic or have nonspecific symptoms such as fever, cough, dyspnea or chest pain. The imaging features of primary pulmonary lymphomas are also nonspecific and variable. Common findings include multiple airspace opacities with or without air bronchograms. Due to the low specificity and incidence of this disease, a multidisciplinary approach is often necessary for the diagnosis, integrating clinical, radiological, histological and immunohistochemical findings. We report a case of an asymptomatic patient with an incidentally detected pulmonary mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma, a subtype of primary pulmonary lymphoma, whose imaging findings consisted of airspace opacities and several pulmonary cysts, an atypical presentation of a rare disease.