Las histiocitosis

the term histiocytosis identifies a group of disorders that have in common the proliferation of dentritic cells (dc) and macrophages and is frequently diagnosed in children. among the fundamental variants of histiocytosis related with dc, we find langerhans cell histiocytosis (lch). langerhans cell histiocytosis has very variable clinical behavior that ranges from a lesion involving only one site or system to a multisystem disease. treatment depends on the spread of the process. an only lesion tends to spontaneously disappear. also diagnostic biopsy with or without steroid injection may lead to healing. those patients with multisystem disease may benefit from an steroid and cytostatic-based treatment or even from progenitor hematopoietic cell transplantation. sinus histiocytosis with massive lymphadenopathies or rosai dorfman disease is a benign and usually self-limited disease which is caused by the macrophage proliferation; it generally affects children and young adults. hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis is also caused by macrophage proliferation and is a rare disease with a high mortality rate. it can be familiar hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (recessive autosomal) or secondary to viral infections, being the latter form the most frequent in infants. at present, mainly in the familiar variant, the progenitor hematopoietic allogenic transplant may serve as the only curative option