Thoracic spine Langerhans cell histiocytosis in a child with achondroplasia

Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis in the Pediatric Spine Requiring Stabilization: A Literature Review and Report of 3 Cases

CASE

This report describes 3 cases of Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) of the cervical and thoracic spine in patients aged 4 to 10 years. Each patient had painful lytic spinal lesions with vertebral body collapse and posterior involvement suggesting instability requiring corpectomy, grafting, and fusion. All 3 patients were doing well at their most recent follow-up without pain or recurrence.

CONCLUSION

Although LCH of the pediatric spine is usually successfully treated non-operatively, we recommend corpectomy and fusion when there is instability of the spinal column and/or severe stenosis. Posterior element involvement occurred in all 3 cases and may lead to instability.

Langerhans cell histiocytosis: unusual dorsal spine localization in an adult male

This case report describes the clinical, imaging, and pathological features of a case of Langerhans cell histiocytosis affecting a patient suffering from chronic thoracic spine pain. Spinal localizations of Langerhans cell histiocytosis have been rarely described and they are usually characterized by involvement of vertebral bodies with osteolytic lesions. Our case presented with several unusual features that delayed the diagnosis, including the age of patient and the involvement of left T10 costovertebral junction with relative sparing of vertebral body and costal bone. The clues for diagnosis were represented by increased signal intensity both on T ₂W fat-saturated and T ₁W images after administration of gadolinium. The diagnosis was finally confirmed by means of percutaneous biopsy with subsequent histological/immunohistochemical study.

Multisystem Langerhans cell histiocytosis: Literature review and case report

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) refers to a group of diseases of unknown etiology, typically discovered in childhood, characterized by the accumulation of Langerhans cells (white blood cells with large cell nuclei that may contain cytoplasmic histiocytosis X bodies) involving one or more organ systems, including bones, lungs, pituitary gland, skin, lymph nodes, and liver. This disease is also known as histiocytosis X or eosinophilic granuloma. Pulmonary LCH is common (identified in 40% of LCH patients) and may be isolated to the lung or involve other organs. Although LCH is characterized by clonal cell proliferation, adult LCH is considered likely to represent the manifestation of an aberrant immune response to an unspecified antigenic stimulus rather than a manifestation of tumor proliferation. We report a very complicated clinical case of LCH, with multiple organ damage that received a variety of different diagnoses. An LCH diagnosis was confirmed based on postoperative spinal cord pathology results and immunohistochemistry examinations. This case report highlights the clinical, laboratory, and imaging signs observed in this case that should be noted to help doctors more quickly recognize, diagnose, and treat similar cases.

Unusual sites of bone involvement in Langerhans cell histiocytosis: a systematic review of the literature

Background

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare disease that originates from the uncontrolled proliferation and accumulation of bone marrow-derived immature myeloid dendritic cells. Dendritic cells are a type of histiocyte that play an important role in the human immune system and are found in the bone, skin, stomach, eyes, intestines, and lungs.

Objective

This systematic review aimed to collect and report published case reports of rare bone disease caused by LCH to avoid misdiagnoses or delays in diagnosis.

Methods

We systematically searched Scopus, PubMed, Embase, and Web of Sciences from August 1, 2000 to December 31, 2019. Studies reporting cases of LCH with rare bone involvement were included.

Results

We identified 60 articles including 64 cases. Of the identified cases, 31 (48.4%) involved children, and 33 (51.6%) involved adults. Additionally, 46.9% (30 individuals) were from Asian countries. The mean age of the children was 7.6 ± 4.3 years and that of the adults was 36 ± 12 years. The findings indicated that unifocal bone involvements were the most prevalent form of the disease (68.7%), and, overall, the skull and chest wall were the most commonly affected bones in both adults and children. The spine and long bones were the second most commonly affected bones in children, and the spine and jaw were the second most commonly affected bones in adults. Pain and swelling were the most frequent presenting signs among the investigated cases, and loss of consciousness, myelopathy, nerve palsy, visual loss, torticollis and clicking sounds were rare signs. Osteolytic lesions were the most frequent radiologic feature (62.5%), and intracranial hemorrhage, fluid–fluid level, dura and intracranial extension and pathologic fractures were rare radiological features. Total excision, curettage and observation in the unifocal group of patients and systemic chemotherapy in the other groups (i.e., multifocal and multisystem) were the most frequent management approaches. The recovery rates of the unifocal and multifocal groups were 77.3% and 81.8%, respectively, while that of the multisystem group was 55.5%. The rates of recurrence and mortality in the multisystem group were 11% and were higher than those in the other groups.

Conclusions

LCH is a rare disease that can affect any organ in the human body. However, bone is the most commonly involved organ, and rare bone involvements may be the first or only symptom of the disease due to the rarity of such lesions; a lack of familiarity with them may result in misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis.