Cutaneous Lymphomas, Pseudolymphomas, and Related Disorders

The term lymphoma was originally used by Billroth in 1871 [55], and by Virehow [763] some years before that, for the designation of swelling of lymph nodes that was not due to eareinoma, sareoma, ehondroma, myxoma, ete. In his paper, Billroth reeounted sueeessful treatment with arsenie ( Fowler's solution) of multiple lymphomas that had developed in a 40-year-old woman during a 10-month period. From this report it is not entirely clear if the multiple lymphomas deseribed were infeetious or if they were eonsis­ te nt with what we now mean by malignant lymphoma. Today, the term malignant lymphoma is generally used eolleetively for malignant lymphoproliferative neoplasms that tend to arise in lymph nodes and also eneompasses Hodgkin's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. The adjeetive malignant seems somewhat superfluous sinee, in addition to Bill­ roth's original eonnotation, the sense of malignaney is nowadays read into the word lymphoma. To be sure, true, i. e. , malignant, lymphomas have to be differentiated from pseudolymphomas, or to put it more exaetly, pseudomalignant lymphomas. In this book, lymphoma and malignant lymphoma are used interehan­ geably for malignant neoplastie lymphoproliferative disorders, and pseudo­ lymphoma is used for benign lymphomatous proeesses. Our editorial eonsultant, Dr. M. Leider, disagrees with all of this. In his Dictionary of Dermatological Words, Terms, and Phrases [421] and other works, he maintains that there is no etymologieal basis for words bearing the eontrived suffix -oma or the true Greek suffix -ma to denote malignaney.