Lymphoblastic lymphoma with a triple-hit profile: a rare but distinct and relevant entity

Abstract

Follicular lymphoma with progression to a high-grade lymphoma bears a poor prognosis. We describe a case of a 60-year-old man who presented in 2012 with an epidural mass, diagnosed as a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with concurrent low-grade follicular lymphoma. Three years later, the patient presented with a cervical mass, diagnosed as a lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL). Both the DLBCL and LBL contained a “triple hit” with BCL2, BCL6, and cMYC translocations demonstrated by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis and a complex karyotype by single-nucleotide polymorphism array analysis. Furthermore, the 2 lymphomas were shown to be clonally related by clonality analysis and single-nucleotide polymorphism array analysis. This case report presents a highly unusual case of an LBL with a triple hit, originating from a DLBCL, which has rarely been described in the literature and deserves further exploration.