A CD30-POSITIVE T-CELL LINE ESTABLISHED FROM AN AGGRESSIVE ANAPLASTICLARGE-CELL LYMPHOMA, ORIGINALLY DIAGNOSED AS HODGKINS-DISEASE

Ten months following the diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease (HD), a 46-yea r-old woman presented cutaneous and leukemic involvement by CD30+ anap lastic large cells, from which a continuously growing, exogenous growt h factor-independent T cell line was established. The cultured cells a re phenotypically and genotypically T cell in type, negative for EBV, HTLV-I and HTLV-II viral sequences, and release soluble CD30 into the supernatant. Karyotype analysis disclosed several chromosomal abnormal ities, but none on chromosome 5q. The involvement of the short arm of chromosome 17 prompted us to investigate the TP53 gene by means of the polymerase chain reaction single-strand conformation polymorphism (PC R-SSCP) analysis, but no alterations were found in exons 5-8.