Intravascular large cell lymphoma associated with hypoalbuminemia.

We report here a 71-yr-old Japanese woman who presented with severe anasarca and hypoalbuminemia. She had a postmortem diagnosis of intravascular large B-cell lymphoma, which is a rare type of lymphoma characterized by an intravascular proliferation of lymphoma cells. Severe generalized edema was thought to be attributed to vascular and/or lymphatic obstruction due to proliferation of lymphoma cells within the lumina and/or an increase in catabolism induced by tumor proliferation.