Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL)--clinical, histopathological, immunological and immunohistochemical...

Twenty-one patients with ATL were assessed. The predominant physical findings were lymph node and bone marrow involvement, skin involvement, hepatosplenomegaly and leukemic manifestations. The predominant histopathological findings in both skin and lymph node specimens were the diffuse medium-sized cell type and the diffuse mixed cell type. Some phenotypic discrepancy was found between the neoplastic cells in the peripheral blood, lymph nodes and skin of patients with ATL with respect to CD45RA and CD45RO, and CD7, CD29, CD25 and HLA-DR. That is, the predominant neoplastic cell phenotype was the helper T-cell, which was CD3+, CD4+, CD7+, CD25+, CD45RA+ and HLA-DR+, and CD29- and CD45RO- in peripheral blood and lymph nodes, and CD3+, CD4+, CD7+, CD29+, CD45RO+ and HLA-DR+, and CD45RA- in the skin. In other words, we have described the phenotypic heterogeneity of ATL cells and demonstrated the heterogeneity of CD45R isoform expression on ATL cells in different organs--the skin, peripheral blood and lymph nodes--of the same patient.