Massive Abdominal Lymphadenopathy as a Manifestation of Connective Tissue Diseases. Report of Two Cases and Review of the Literature

In this report, massive abdominal lymphadenopathy of the reactive type, related to the underlying disease activity, was described in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus and another one with mixed connective tissue disease. The diagnosis of this very rare clinical presentation was made after appropriate and meticulous work up that ruled out other possibilities such as infectious or lymphoproliferative diseases. Clinicians should be aware of this rare occurence and, when faced with such a picture, they should appropriately rule out other more serious pathologies, before administering moderate steroid doses targeting the underlying disease.