Related Experiment Videos
[A clinico-pathological and immunohistochemical study on anaplastic large cell lymphoma]
1Department of Pathology, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Second Medical University, Shanghai 200025.
Objective:
To study the clinicopathological characteristics, immunophenotype and biologic behavior of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL).
Methods:
Clinicopathological and immunohistochemical methods (ABC method) were used to analyse 8 cases of ALCL and followed for 6 to 25 months.
Results:
Eight ALCL patients (4 male and 4 female) accounted for 4.1% of the 195 lymphomas seen from 1994 to 1997. Average age was 40 years. Two tumors were located in the skin, the remainder were systemic. Clinical stage: stage I, 2 cases; stage II, 1 case; stage III, 5 cases. Histopathology: Tumor cells exhibited high pleomorphism and a large amount of mitotic figures. Reactive components (cells) often observed in the background. Immunohistochemical studies found that all tumors reacted positively with CD30 and negatively with CD15. Five cases expressed T-cell's markers (CD3, UCHL-1, CD43) and three expressed B-cell markers (CD79a, L26). After chemotherapy, two patients with cutaneous type ALCL had complete remission and survived 14 and 25 months respectively. Of the six systemic cases, three survived for 6-8 months, the remaining three died at 2 days, 20 days and 18 months after diagnosis.
Conclusions:
This study found that ALCL was a group of lymphomas showing similarity in morphology but diversity in clinical presentation and immunophenotype. Even if the tumor is very responsive to chemotherapy, ALCL remains a high grade malignant lymphoma.