Objective: To analyze the characters of incidence, pathological and immunological phenotype of malignant lymphoma(ML), and to study the significance of IgH and TCR T cell receptor gene rearrangement for NHL typing.
Methods: Immunological phenotyping was conducted by SABC, and IgH (FR2A, FR3A) & TCR (beta,gamma) gene rearrangement detected by PCR of some pathological wax and bone marrow samples.
Results: (1) In ML, the percentage of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, (NHL) was 88.6% and Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) was 11.4%. The incidence increased with the patient's age. The percentage of patients over 60 years was 38.6%, and the median survival time of those older than 60 years was significantly shorter than that of the younger. (2) The percentage of B-NHL was 68.6%, and that of T-NHL was 28.6%; 3 years' survival time rate of B-NHL was higher than that of T-NHL. (3) The percentage of low grade NHL was 42%, and that of middle and high grade NHL was 58%; and the overall survival time was not significantly different between the two groups. But the overall survival time was longer in patients in stages I-II than in stages III-IV. (4) The results of detection on wax and bone marrow samples showed that B-NHL FR2A were 66.7% and 56.2% positive, FR3A 90.4% and 81.2% positive; in T-NHL patients, TCR-beta and TCR-gamma gene rearrangements were 91.7% and 75.0% positive; T and B classification were the same as the immunological phenotype.
Conclusion: Age, T and B classifications and staging are the important factors, which affect the prognosis of NHL. Molecular biological methods can help T/B classification when we couldn't get it by phenotyping.