While the pathologic entity of pharyngeal lymphoblastoma is not rare and there should not be any unusual difficulty in making a diagnosis in the average case, the symptoms presented by our patient for a time so masked the picture that several diagnoses were discussed. It was not until surgical intervention, with removal of a section for pathologic study, that the diagnosis became evident.
Lymphoblastoma is commonly referred to as lymphosarcoma. However, some authorities like to make a distinction between the two. To quote Delafield and Prudden:1
There may occur in any part of the lymphatic system a tumor composed of lymphocytes (lymphocytoma) or, more generally, of their ancestral element, the lymphoblast (lymphoblastoma). This type of growth is often called a lymphosarcoma, but as there is an increasing desire on the part of pathologists to preserve the term sarcoma for neoplasms of supporting connective tissue, lymphoblastoma has been suggested as a