Journal of Pathology and Translational Medicine

Case Studies

Composite chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma involving the bone marrow: a case report and literature review: Roksolana Demianets, Susan O’Brien, Khosrow Mahdavi, Chenchen Niu, Sumayya Aslam, Truc Tran, Ying Zhang, Ashley Gamayo, Xiaohui Zhao, Sherif A. Rezk; J Pathol Transl Med. 2025;59(5):334-339. Published online September 8, 2025; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4132/jptm.2025.07.02

Abstract PDF: Chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL) is a clinically indolent lymphoproliferative disorder characterized by accumulation of mature B-cell lymphocytes. Given the common CD5 co-expression, mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is one of the most important entities in the differential diagnosis. MCL and CLL/SLL might exhibit overlapping morphologic and immunohistochemical features, making diagnosis particularly difficult in cases of composite lymphomas. Here, we present a unique case of composite lymphoma in an 86-year-old male, along with a literature review on the immunophenotypic variability of both MCL and CLL, which should always be confirmed with additional ancillary cytogenetic and molecular studies.

Acquired aberrant partial CD3 expression in recurrent Epstein-Barr virus–negative solitary plasmacytoma of tonsil: Chenchen Niu, Dong Ren, Truc Tran, Ashley Gamayo, Sherif Rezk, Xiaohui Zhao; J Pathol Transl Med. 2025;59(4):262-268. Published online May 15, 2025; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4132/jptm.2025.04.17

Abstract PDF: The aberrant expression of specific T-cell maker CD3 in B-cell neoplasms can be a potential diagnostic pitfall leading to a misclassification of cell lineage. Here, we report a case of recurrent solitary plasmacytoma with new aberrant expression of CD3. The neoplastic plasma cells of the recurrent tumor were kappa restricted, positive for CD138, MUM1, negative for CD20, cyclin D1, and Epstein-Barr virus. CD79a was positive in majority of the tumor cells, except for a small focus which was strongly positive for CD3, but negative for other T-cell markers (CD2, CD5, CD7, CD4, and CD8) and CD56. The neoplastic plasma cells of the original tumor were negative for CD3. To the best of our knowledge, only one case of recurrent plasmacytoma with aberrant expression of CD3 has been published, which revealed disease progression in the recurrence. However, we did not observe morphologic evidence of disease progression in our case.

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