Lymphoepithelioma – a tumour rarely observed in children (3 cases)

Abstract

Lymphoepithelioma rarely develops in children. In its early stage it may manifest itself only as enlarged cervical lymph nodes, which is likely to cause difficulties in the initial diagnosis. Radiotherapy is the treatment of choice, however, chemotherapy has also been used. The paper describes three cases of children treated for lymphoepithelioma at the Department of Children Hematology and Oncology in Lublin between 1991 – 2001. In all cases, the diagnosis was based on histopathological examinations of the tumour or lymph node biopsies. The methods of treatment used were different in each case and the longest disease free survival was 3 years. Therefore it seems necessary to design a uniform protocol of treatment for children with lymphoepithelioma.

The first child was treated only to radiotherapy. This choice was based on lack of results of well conducted trials of cytostatic treatment. The good result of our treatment confirmed the data presented by other with the use of radiotherapy alone.

In the second case, in case of large tumour, paralysis of cranial nerves, this patient was refered to combined treatment (radio-chemotherapy). In this case the partial remission was achived.

In the third case, chemotherapy (cisplatin + 5-fluorouracil) resulted in perfect remission of the primary tumour and metastases to the lymph nodes while radiotherapy allow to achive complete control of the primary tumour and metastases to lymph nodes.