Adenopathies in Internal Medicine Etiological Profile and Diagnostic Limits

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: An adenopathy is a pathological hypertrophy of a lymph node of various etiologies requiring a rigorous approach. Thus we proposed in this work to study the etiological particularities of patients admitted for adenopathy in order to identify their specificities. METHODS : This was an observational study of a transverse and descriptive type, which took place from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016 in the internal medicine department of the Aristide Le Dantec national hospital in Dakar. RESULTS : We identified 84 patients, consisted of 46 male and 38 female. The sex ratio was 1.2. The mean age was 37.5 years. The consultation period was on average 2 months with extremes of 1 month and 1 year. The mean hospital stay was 29. 2 days with extremes of 1 week and 2 months. The etiologies found were classified into 6 groups. Hemopathies (30.9%) were dominated by acute leukemia in 8 patients (9.52%), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 9 patients (9.5%), Hodgkin’s disease in 5 patients (5.9%). Chronic lymphocytic leukemia was retained in 3 patients (3.5%) and Castleman disease in 1 patient. Systemic diseases (11.9%) were divided into lupus disease in 4 patients and rheumatoid arthritis in 4 patients, one case of Sj?gren’s syndrome and one case of sarcoidosis. Infections were very frequent in our study, found in 34 patients (40.4%). Tuberculosis was more frequent (27.3%). The association with HIV was noted in 4 patients. The other infections were pyogenic in 3 patients (3.5%), HIV in 6 patients (7.1%), Borrelia and toxoplasma in 1 patient respectively. Cancers (8.3%) were metastatic of primary tumors including the esophagus, lung, prostate, cavum, stomach, pancreas and breast, one case each. One patient presented lymphadenopathy with inguinal localization, the etiology of which was found to be thrombophlebitis of the right lower limb. The hystiocytic pathologies (3.5%) were all related to lymphohystiocytic activation syndrome (LHAS) secondary to tuberculosis in 2 patients and pyomyositis in 1 patient. The difficulties encountered were mainly the inaccessibility of certain complementary examinations and the delay in obtaining the results. CONCLUSION: Adenopathies are a very common reason for consultation in internal medicine. This study allowed us to draw up the etiological profile of adenopathies in our practice but also to identify the main difficulties which are among other things the inaccessibility of certain complementary examinations.