Dear Editor,
We read with interest the comments made by Al-Mendalawi on our publication,1 and we thank him for his useful comments and suggestions.
This case was initially referred to us from a private hospital for second opinion, and we assumed that the patient was not thoroughly investigated for immune deficiencies as he presented as an acute surgical emergency.2 Despite this, and to the best of our knowledge, this patient was not HIV positive. HIV infection is, however, very rare in this population while other congenital immune deficiencies are more prevalent.3,4
We will, however, certainly alert the treating physicians to perform further investigations, if they are not already done on this patient, and will consider this test in any similar cases in the future.
references
- 1. Al-Mendalawi MD. Letter to the Editor: Appendiceal inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor and HIV infection, an association not to be missed. Oman Med J 2019 Mar;34(2):176.
- 2. Coffin CM, Watterson J, Priest JR, Dehner LP. Extrapulmonary inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (inflammatory pseudotumor). A clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical study of 84 cases. Am J Surg Pathol 1995 Aug;19(8):859-872.
- 3. Bonnet JP, Basset T, Dijoux D. Abdominal inflammatory myofibroblastic tumors in children: report of an appendiceal case and review of the literature. J Pediatr Surg 1996 Sep;31(9):1311-1314.
- 4. Vijayaraghavan R, Chandrashekar R, Belagavi CS. Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour of appendix. J Clin Pathol 2006 Sep;59(9):999-1000.