Objective: To investigate the relationship between clinicopathologic features and immunophenotypes in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) of the spleen.
Methods: Clinicopathologic analysis and follow up; immunohistologic staining by SP method and EBER in situ hybridization.
Results: (1) Splenomegaly was found in all 19 cases of spleen NHL, 10 of the 19 (52.6%) cases had masses or a mass in their enlarged spleen; (2) 14 of the 19 (73.7%) cases were of B-cell type (including 5 cases of follicular type and 9 cases of diffuse type), in which 8 cases were centroblastic, 3 of centroblast/centrocyte and 4 cases of small lymphocyte types; all 10 cases of primary splenic lymphomas (PSL) were B-cell type; (3) 5 of the 19 cases (26.3%) had peripheral T-cell origin, including 4 cases of large cell type and 1 case of small cell type; of the 3 TIA-1 positive cases, 2 were also positive for EBER 1/2 (one CD 8+ and another CD56+), the remaining case was CD8-, CD56-, EBER1/2-; all 5 cases were secondary NHL of the spleen; (4) Follow up data were obtained for 14/19 cases (73.7%). 8 of 9 surviving cases were primary NHL. The range of survival period varied from 8 to 10 years. All 5 deceased cases had secondary NHL and their survival period was 2 to 6 months.
Conclusions: Some relationship exists between the clinicopathology and origin of the tumor cells in splenic NHL, the prognosis of primary NHL is better than that of the secondary NHL and the diagnosis of primary NHL should be made with discretion.