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Intravascular lymphomas are extranodal, diffuse, large B-cell lymphomas. Neoplastic cells proliferate within blood vessels, and the possibly ambiguous clinical signs can include fever, dementia, respiratory failure, adrenal insufficiency, splenomegaly, elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase levels, and skin lesions. Because these tumors are rare, and because the related signs are common and nonspecific, the disease goes undiagnosed in more than half of affected patients until the postmortem examination.
Asada and colleagues examined a total of 26 skin biopsy samples from six consecutive patients with suspected intravascular lymphoma. Only two patients had skin lesions (faint erythema or purpura-like skin lesions), but all six patients had lymp…