Magnified observation of spontaneous morphological changes of duodenal follicular lymphoma

A 63-year-old Japanese woman was diagnosed with duodenal follicular lymphoma. The initial esophagogastroduodenoscopic examination with magnifying observation revealed opaque white spots and enlarged whitish villi. Nine months later, esophagogastroduodenoscopy showed that the size of the lymphoma lesion decreased, and only opaque white spots were visible. The histological analysis of biopsy samples obtained during the initial endoscopy examination showed both neoplastic follicles and an inter-follicular infiltration of lymphoma cells, whereas the biopsy samples obtained at the endoscopy performed 9 months later showed only neoplastic follicle formation. These results suggest that the magnifying endoscopic features may reflect the underlying pathological mechanisms : enlarged whitish villi are probably due to lymphoma cell infiltration in the inter-follicular area, and opaque white spots are probably caused by neoplastic follicle formation