Clinicopathogenetic significance of chromosomal abnormalities in patients with blastic peripheral B-cell lymphoma

So far, reproducible histomorphologic and immunological criteria to disting uish clinicopathologic subtypes of blastic peripheral B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (BBCL), especially centroblastic (cb) and immunoblastic (ib) lymph omas, for daily diagnostic use are still lacking. Therefore, we correlated the cytogenetic findings in 126 patients with BBCL with histopathologic dia gnoses. Subclassification of cb and ib lymphomas relied on the criteria def ined in the updated Kiel classification; these subtypes are also listed in the Revised European-American Lymphoma (REAL) classification and in a preli minary report on the newly established World Health Organization classifica tion, to investigate their clinical significance. Moreover, we performed a multivariate analysis to compare the prognostic significance of cytogenetic findings with the International Index. There were significant differences in the frequency of chromosome aberrations between different BBCL subtypes: t(8;14) was predominantly present in Burkitt's lymphomas, t(14;18) in cent roblastic lymphomas, deletions in 8q and 14q, changes of 4q and losses of c hromosome 10 in immunoblastic lymphomas; t(11;14) was restricted to blastoi d mantle cell lymphomas and associated with a poor prognosis. In cb lymphom as, deletions in 1q42-qter, duplications in 1q23-32, trisomy 5, and changes of 15q were identified as independent prognostic factors. In ib lymphomas, changes of 7q and 8q had stronger impact on survival than the Internationa l Index. These findings underline that Burkitt's, cb, ib, and blastoid mant le-cell lymphoma are biologically distinct and clinically relevant entities and that cytogenetic findings can be helpful to subtype BBCL. (C) 1999 by The American Society of Hematology.