A boy diagnosed Burkitt’s lymphoma developed to systemic lupus erythematosus during the follow-up: a case report and literature review

Background: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are at an elevated risk for cancer, especially hematologic malignancies, such as lymphoma, and leukemia. Several studies that have already reported are limited to assess cancer incidence after SLE diagnosis. However, SLE can be also diagnosed after cancer although there were rare cases reported in children so far. Case presentation: A 2.6-year-old boy presented with fever and abdominal pain, was found to have a periumbilical mass in physical examination and was pathologically diagnosed as Burkitt’s lymphoma. In order to consolidate the effect of chemotherapy and reduce the relapse of cancer, autologous stem cell transplantation was performed for him. During the follow-up time of 5 years later, he was diagnosed with SLE due to fever with rash, positive autoantibodies, decreased complement, and kidney involvement. At the last follow-up, he is alive with no recurrence of Burkitt’s lymphoma and no disease activity of SLE. Conclusion: In spite of the low frequency of SLE in children with lymphoma, this process may be induced by some common mechanism, including B cell clone and proliferation. So, hematologists and rheumatologists should be alert to the occurrence of both cancer and SLE during the follow-up of patients.