CD30 expression and its correlation with MYC rearrangement in de novo diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

DLBCL is a heterogeneous disease with 40% of patients presenting as refractory/relapsing disease following R-CHOP treatment. Few recent studies investigating CD30 expression in DLBCL reported various prognostic effects. This study aimed to evaluate CD30 expression and its correlation with MYC rearrangement and to clarify its prognostic significance in DLBCL.

In 98 patients with de novoDLBCL, we studied CD30 expression by immunohistochemistry using different cutoff values (>0%, ≥20%, and ≥40% lymphoma cells, respectively) and correlated with the corresponding MYC rearrangement status by FISH.

The clinicopathologic features were very similar between the CD30+ and CD30- groups. The only major difference was that CD30 expression was nearly exclusively seen in cases without MYC rearrangement. CD30 expression was not predictive of overall survival irrespective of therapy regimens, cell of origin, or MYC rearrangement status (P > 0.05). In the 27 patients receiving aggressive regimens, CD30 expression was associated with better OS (P = 0.008) when all patients were included while the survival advantage was lost (P = 0.21) if MYC rearranged cases were excluded.

CD30 expression was not associated with prognosis in our cohort of de novoDLBCL, including in patients who received aggressive chemotherapy. CD30 expression and MYC rearrangement were mutually exclusive in de novoDLBCL.