Introduction

Periorbital skin alterations can be of inflammatory and neoplastic origin. In very rare cases Non-Hodgkin lymphomas occur in this region. We describe a patient with a rare subtype of the Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which was diagnosed by ophthalmologists.

Material and methods

A 65 years old female patient visited an ophthalmologist because of a tumor within the left supraorbital skin area. She complained about subjective deterioration of vision. During the ophthalmologic examination we found a full visual acuity in both eyes with no bulbar pathology. Tumor biopsy and an immunocytochemical examination determined the diagnosis of an NK blastic lymphoma. The patient was treated with CHOP chemotherapy

Conclusions

It is believed that the rare NK blastic lymphoma develops from NK progenitor cells. When the periorbital skin is involved, the secondary edema can lead to narrowing of the palpebral fissure and to subjective vision deterioration. In these cases ophthalmologists can be the first medical specialists visited.