The enlarged lymphnodes are sometimes disclosed in the neck by the physical examination, but the conclusive diagnosis is very difficult without histological examination.
A statistical study was made for the 275 consecutive cases of the enlarged lymphnodes in the neck encountered at the department of surgery, Kyung-Hee University Hospital, for the period of the past 3 years.
Of all 275 cases, tuberculous lymphadenitis occupying 63.7% as a single disease entity was most common and non-specific lymphadenitis occupying 30.9%, lymphoma occupying 2.6%, metastatic cancer occupying 1.8% were followed in decreasing order of
frequency. In the distribution of the sex, male to female ratio was 1 : 2.2. In the distribution of the age, tuberculous and non-specific lymphandenitis were occurred in the third decade with exceedingly high incidence. However the most of
lymphoma
and
all metastatic cancers were observed in the old age group more than 5th decade.
The most of enlarged cervical lymphnodes involved only one side of the neck but tuberculous lymphadenitis, and non-specific lymphadenitis, and lymphoma occasionally both sides, Metastatic cancer involved only the unilateral side. Tuberculous and
non-specific lymphadenitis were most frequently occurred in the left suboccipital triangle and lymphoma in supraclavicular trlangle. The most of enlarged nodes were smaller than 2 cm but lymphoma and metastatic cancer were mostly larger than 4
cm.
The
most of tuberculous and non-specific lymphadenitis were solitary rather than multiple but lymphoma was multiple. All of the metastatic cancer were solitary. The duration of prevalence of the enlarged nodes was mostly less than 6 months.
In the laboratory aspect the count of WBC had no clinical significance, because WBC count between 3,000/μL and 11,000/μL occupied 95.7% ESR was raised above 15 mm/hr in non-specific lymphadenitis(56.0%) and tuberculous lymphadenintis(57.1%).
The
half
of tuberculous lymphadenitis had abnormal findings in the chest PA.
The 77.% of tuberculous lymphadenitis was treated with combination of lymphadenectomy and antituberculous medication, but 22.2% was medicated only. The 38% of nonspecific lymphadenitis was medicated with antibiotics but the 56% is observed only.
Six
cases out of all lymphoma and 3 cases of metastatic cancers were treated with anticancer-drug but 2 cases of metastatic cancer were conservatively treated.
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