Follicular lymphoid hyperplasia is a rare reactive benign lesion of the oral mucosa. This is also known as pseudolymphoma as the features mimic the malignant counterpart Follicular lymphoma. In present case, a 34 year old male patient came with a nodular swelling in the posterior-lateral left side of tongue. Medical or dental history was non contributory. Swelling was painless, well demarcated, and about peanut sized. The swelling was provisionally diagnosed as either neurilemmoma, mucocele, or traumatic fibroma. Complete excision was performed, and tissue was sent to a private laboratory. Histopathological findings seen were germinal centers having a core of monotonous cells of the same size and demarcated mantle area mimicking the lymphoma. Immunophenotyping revealed diffused positivity for kappa and lambda expressions. CD10 was diffusely positive in germinal centers and BCl 2 was positive in the mantle area while negative in germinal centers. The final diagnosis given was follicular lymphoid hyperplasia. The entity mentioned in the present paper is an unusual variant of the benign lymphoproliferative lesion and very few cases are reported in the tongue area. Thus, it is important to understand the nature of this benign lesion in all aspects to avoid diagnostic dilemmas due to its malignant mirroring characteristics.

Aim: Abnormal expression patterns of beta-tubulin isotypes may provide a molecular rationale for the behaviour of lymphoma subtypes. In the present study class II and III beta-tubulin expression was assessed in non-neoplastic and neoplastic lymphoid tissues with reference to potential utility as new tumour biomarkers. Methods and results: In this cross-sectional study class II and III beta-tubulin expression was assessed in 304 neoplastic and 20 normal lymphoid tissues using qualitative and semi-quantitative immunohistochemistry. Class II beta-tubulin was found to be positive in the germinal centres, mantle zone and interfollicular regions of normal lymphoid tissues. It was also expressed in 15/15 (100%) lymphoblastic lymphomas, 229/231 (99%) mature B cell lymphomas, 22/22 (100%) T/NK-cell lymphomas and 36/36(100%) classical Hodgkin lymphomas. Class III beta-tubulin in contrast was germinal centre restricted and more selective, being found mainly in classical Hodgkin lymphomas (34/36 (94%)). It was also expressed in 58/171(34%) DLBCL, 11/12 (92%) mantle cell lymphomas and 6/6 (100%) Burkitt lymphomas. Other mature B cell, T/NK cell lymphomas and precursor lymphoblastic lymphomas were usually negative. Conclusions: Class II beta-tubulin shows ubiquitous expression in neoplastic and non-neoplastic lymphoisd tissues. In contrast, Class III beta-tubulin is germinal centre-restricted. Its consistent expression in classical Hodgkin lymphomas may point to use in the identification of Reed-Sternberg and Hodgkin cells. Its expression in a proportion of DLBCL, Burkitt and mantle cell lymphomas is of interest as this may be related to their aggressiveness.