The aim of this study was to evaluate children with lymphadenopathy and clinical approach to the suspicion of malignancy. The authors evaluated 457 patients with peripheral lymphadenopathy, less than 19 years of age, and referred to the Pediatric Oncology Department of Gazi University Medical School during the periods March 1996-April 2004. A total of 346 patients had benign disorders and 111 had malignant pathologies. Excisional biopsies were performed to 134 patients. A specific etiology could be found 39% in the benign group. Of the 457 patients, 218 were presented as acute, the rest as chronic lymphadenopathy. In the acute lymphadenopathy group, 98.2% of the patients had benign etiologies. The malignant disorders were mostly represented as chronic lymphadenopathy. Concerning the extension, 193 patients had localized lymphadenopathy and 264 had generalized lymphadenopaties. Cervical region was the most frequent site in both localized and generalized lymphadenopathy groups. Malignancies occurred as generalized lymphadenopathy. Supraclavicular area were involved only in the malignant group. Axillary involvement was predominant in BCG vaccine associated lymphadenitis and mycobacterium tuberculosis. All the lymph nodes less than 1 cm were due to benign causes. The malignant lesions were usually more than 3 cm in diameters. The following findings should alert the pediatrician for the probability of a malignant disorder: lymphadenopathy of more than 3 cm in size, of more than 4 weeks in duration, with supraclavicular involvement, and with abnormal laboratory and radiological findings.

Our study confirms that excellent results are achievable with combined modality therapy in childhood HD. In order to use risk-adapted therapy in children with HD, clinical prognostic factors should be validated with large, multicentered prospective clinical studies.

Side-population (SP) analysis identifies precursor cells in normal and malignant tissues. Cells with this phenotype have increased resistance to many cytotoxic agents, and in malignant disease may represent a primary drug resistant population. To discover whether drug resistant malignant SP cells are nonetheless sensitive to immune-mediated killing, we first established the presence of a malignant CD5+CD19+ SP subset in the blood of 18/21 subjects with B-CLL. We examined the fate of these cells in 6 of these individuals who received autologous hCD40L/IL-2 gene-modified tumor cells as part of a tumor vaccine study. Vaccinated patients showed an increase in B-CLL-reactive T cells followed by a corresponding decline in circulating CD5+CD19+ SP cells. T cell lines and clones generated from vaccinated patients specifically recognized B-CLL SP tumor cells. Elimination of SP cells is likely triggered by their increased expression of target antigens such as RHAMM following stimulation of the malignant cells by hCD40L, since CD8+ RHAMM-specific T cells could be detected in the peripheral blood of immunized patients and were associated with the decline in B-CLL SP cells. Hence malignant B cells with a primary drug resistant phenotype can be targeted by T cell mediated effector activity following immunization of human subjects.