Intestinal and peritoneal lymphoma complicating Chron’s disease

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease which mostly affects the small intestine. It has a variable clinical course, with alternating attacks of exacerbation and remission. In the last decades, the incidence of Crohn’s disease has been increasing, so imaging of those cases has become more important.

We report a case of a male patient who was treated for Chron’s disease in the past three years and presented with abdominal pain. Post-contrast CT abdomen and pelvis was done revealing soft tissue thickening of intestinal walls in a skip fashion with multiple peritoneal deposits. The case was pathologically proven to be anaplastic large cell lymphoma on top of Chron’s disease.

The cause of the association between Crohn's disease and lymphoma is still elucidated. Radiologists should be aware that Chron’s disease can be complicated by intestinal and peritoneal lymphoma and should suspect the presence of lymphoma on top of Chron’s disease if there is wall thickening of soft tissue attenuation affecting the small bowels in a skipping manner following the areas previously affected by Chron’s disease.