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Any cell in the body can accumulate mutations that eventually allow it to evade destruction by the immune system by neither being recognized as part of you or foreign, replicate (grow), invade surrounding structures and in some cases metastasize either through the circulatory or lymph systems predominantly. T-cells are a type of white blood cell which arise from lymphoid stem cells in the bone marrow and mature in the thymus. Abnormal T-cell malignancies, therefore, most commonly present as a hematologic malignancy which is to say the problem is in one of the early stage cells in the bone marrow and would fall under the umbrella of leukemia or during later stage maturation, most often in the thymus, which presents as a mediastinal mass (chest cavity) which is called lymphoma. Despite being very different presentations, there is a lot of overlap between leukemia and lymphoma - particularly in T-cell origin cancers.

Source: pediatric oncologist

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Yes. There are a lot of leukemias that are T Cell in nature. I am medical technologist with certs in Hematology, Immunology, and Molecular Pathology and currently work in a cancer hospital where I do a lot of T and B cell gene rearrangment tests for cancers of these white blood cells

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What about NK cells?

It’s possible. They won’t be nice mature happy NK cells. The subset of cancer you are looking for is still a leukemia: large granular lymphocytic leukemia.

They absolutely can and in fact there are a whole slew of them:

Angioimmuoblastic T-cell lymphoma

Anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALK+ or ALK- as well as the breast cancer associated and primary cutaneous types)

Adult T cell lymphoma/leukemia

T-Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma/Leukemia

Nasal type extranodal T cell lymphoma

Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma

Enteropathy associated T-cell lymphoma

Monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma

T-Cell Prolymphocytic leukemia

Primary Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphomas (of which there are several different types like Mycosis Fungoides, Sezary Syndrome, Lymphomatoid papulosis, Primary cutaneous gamma/delta)

They are not as common as things like lung, colon, breast, or prostate cancer, even if you lump all of them together.

Source: pathologist (but not a hematopathologist so please don't ask me for more details, here is a free online "textbook" if you want to read more: https://www.pathologyoutlines.com/lymphoma.html)

In addition to NK-LGL like the other poster mentioned there is also Nasal Type Extranodal NK Cell lymphoma

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> Abnormal T-cell malignancies, therefore, most commonly present as a hematologic malignancy which is to say the problem is in one of the early stage cells in the bone marrow

This is not accurate. ETPs (T cell precursors) don't have their Rag genes active and wont be susceptible to T-ALL. So, there aren't really any BM-derived T cell malignancies. It's primarily Pre-T ALL that originates in the thymus, since those are the cells actively rearranging DNA.

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