Malignant lymphoma originating in the spine is a rare occurrence, however differential diagnosis from eosinophilic granuloma or pyogenic spondylitis is often difficult because of inflammatory manifestations clinically and pathologically,
A 48-year-old house wife with Th9 lymphoma was diagnosed as eosinophilic granuloma pathologically after biopsy and anterior simultaneous vertebral body fusion, However, paraplegia ensued one month after surgery, so that palliative posterior decompression was performed.
A 6-year-old girl with Th5 lymphoma had been treated by antibiotics presumably as pyogenic spondylitis. Although emergency biopsy and anterior vertebral fusion was performed as a result of impending paralysis, chemotherapy with regimen of Ki-1 lymphoma ameliorated the desease and the paralysis.
Chemotherapy upon malignant lymphoma is mandatory and often effective, however, in the spinal lesion, surgical intervension is inevitable if the paralysis is impending.