Analysis of clinicopathological features and prognostic factors of non-Hodgkin's intravascular large B-cell lymphoma

Oncol Lett. 2020 Oct;20(4):43. doi: 10.3892/ol.2020.11908. Epub 2020 Jul 24.

Abstract

Non-Hodgkin's intravascular large B-cell lymphoma is a highly invasive extranodal lymphoma. The proliferating tumor cells invade the small vessels and capillaries of different organs. The clinical symptoms are atypical, there is lack of specificity, and the molecular and biological behaviors are not clear, thus, the present study aimed to improve the current understanding of non-Hodgkin's intravascular large B-cell lymphoma (IVL) and provide an accurate basis for clinical treatment and prognosis, by retrospectively analyzing and summarizing the clinicopathological features, immunohistochemical findings and molecular characteristics of 17 patients with IVL. The Kaplan-Meier method and log rank test were implemented to determine survival outcomes. Fisher's exact test was used to determine the association between clinicopathological features and the expression levels of Ki-67, c-Myc, B-cell lymphoma 6 (Bcl-6) and B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), while multivariate Cox regression analysis was performed to identify the independent risk factors that affect the survival rates of patients with IVL. P<0.05 was considered to indicate a statistically significant difference. Among the 17 patients with IVL, 13 cases (76.47%) occurred in the adrenal gland and four cases (23.53%) occurred on the skin demonstrated positive IgH gene rearrangement. FISH analysis indicated that cleavage of the c-Myc gene was closely associated with sex, hypertension status and tumor size, while cleavage of the Bcl-6 gene was closely associated with tumor size parameters. Overall, the results suggest that the Ki-67 proliferation index is an independent risk factor for the prognosis (survival time) of patients with IVL.

Keywords: clinicopathological features; molecular characteristics; non-Hodgkin's intravascular large B-cell lymphoma; prognosis.