Histopathologic, immunophenotypic and genotypic analyses in ocular adnexal lymphoproliferative disorders

This study reports on fourteen biopsies from patients presenting to our orbital and oncology service with ocular adnexal lymphoid proliferations between November 1988 to September 1991. The biopsies were studied using histologic, immunophenotypic and genotypic analyses. By histologic criteria, there were two reactive, five indeterminate and seven lymphomatous lesions. On immunophenotypic analysis, there were two monoclonal and 10 polyclonal lesions in the 12 specimens analysed. Genotypic analysis confirmed the histopathologic diagnoses for the reactive lesions by showing them to be germline. It also confirmed that both the histopathologic lymphomas and immunophenotypically monoclonal lesions were clonally rearranged. Genotypic analysis was able to separate the histologically indeterminate group into two subsets: clonally rearranged, of which there was one, and germline, of which there were four. In addition, it demonstrated that immunophenotypic polyclonality cannot always be equated with genotypic polyclonality as was the situation in four out of 10 lesions in our series. The significance of clonal arrangements in the histologically indeterminate and immunophenotypically polyclonal groups can only be determined by prospective study.