Clinicopathological aspects of Richter's syndrome

Richter's syndrome represents an acute transformation of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia or other type of low-grade malignant non-Hodgkin lymphoma to highly malignant anaplastic large-cell lymphoma. The prognosis of this complication is highly unfavourable. The authors report on eight cases of Richter's syndrome observed in a series of 198 patients with the clinical diagnosis of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and evaluate some clinicopathological and immunological peculiarities of this disease.