Cutaneous Extranodal Natural Killer–/T-Cell Lymphoma: One Step Forward in Understanding the Genetics

Extranodal natural killer–/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type (ENKTCL-NT), is an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)–derived lymphoma with aggressive clinical behavior. Skin is the second most frequent location after the nose and sometimes the primary onset site. Most available information concerns clinicopathology, with limited genetic data available.

These authors retrospectively studied eight patients (5 male; median age, 53) with cutaneous ENKTCL-NT (5 primary, 2 secondary, 1 no staging). Half of the patients had lesions localized to one anatomic location (in order of frequency: face, back, arm), and the rest had generalized lesions. Lesions on the face were lethal midline granulomas (necrotic lesions in the center of the face, particularly the nose) or p…