Burkitt’s lymphoma with leptomeningeal metastasis: Demonstration by FDG-PET and MRI

Burkitt’s lymphoma is endemic in central Africa where it has an incidence of 100 per million children. It is sporadic in America and Europe. Secondary involvement of the central nervous system (CNS) by aggressive B-cell lymphomas is an infrequent but nearly always fatal complication. Gadolinium-enhanced MRI is the neuroimaging technique of choice to demonstrate tumoral meningeal infiltration. PET–CT is a modality used for staging of lymphoma. Meningeal infiltration by tumor cells show increase FDG uptake, as has been documented in some studies of breast and lung cancers. In this case we wish to highlight the importance of doing a whole body PET in a patient who has no obvious evidence of Burkitt’s lymphoma outside the jaw. To the best of our knowledge this is the first case of leptomeningeal metastases from Burkitt’s lymphoma localized to the jaw, studied on MRI and PET–CT.