Molecular Complexity of Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma: Can It Be a Roadmap for Precision Medicine?

Cancers (Basel). 2020 Jan 11;12(1):185. doi: 10.3390/cancers12010185.

Abstract

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common non-Hodgkin lymphoma; it features extreme molecular heterogeneity regardless of the classical cell-of-origin (COO) classification. Despite this, the standard therapeutic approach is still immunochemotherapy (rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone-R-CHOP), which allows a 60% overall survival (OS) rate, but up to 40% of patients experience relapse or refractory (R/R) disease. With the purpose of searching for new clinical parameters and biomarkers helping to make a better DLBCL patient characterization and stratification, in the last years a series of large discovery genomic and transcriptomic studies has been conducted, generating a wealth of information that needs to be put in order. We reviewed these researches, trying ultimately to understand if there are bases offering a roadmap toward personalized and precision medicine also for DLBCL.

Keywords: COO classification; biomarker; diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL); liquid biopsy; next-generation sequencing (NGS); targeted therapy.

Publication types

  • Review