Hodgkin's lymphoma presenting with heart failure: A case report

Abstract

Introduction. Cardiac involvement in malignant lymphoma is one of the least investigated subjects in oncology. This article reports a case of cardiac involvement in Hodgkin's lymphoma which presented as heart failure. Case presentation. We report the case of an 8-year-old Afghan girl with Hodgkin's lymphoma. The disease presented with systemic signs and symptoms, including abdominal distension, weakness, pallor, chills, fever, generalized edema, hepatosplenomegaly and generalized lymphadenopathy, as well as signs of heart failure. Test results showed a rare form of heart metastasis. Conclusion. We report a case of Hodgkin's lymphoma with metastasis to the heart, detected premortem. Although the involvement of the heart in a malignancy is relatively common, premortem detection is unusual and only few studies have reported it in the literature. © 2010 Amirimoghaddam et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.