title: High incidence of BCL-6 gene rearrangement in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of primary gastric origin.
abstract: The incidence of BCL-6 gene rearrangement was studied in 39 Hong Kong Chinese patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The primary site of involvement was nodal in 18 cases and gastric in 21 cases. Clonal BCL-6 gene rearrangement was found in 17% of the patients with primary nodal and 48% with primary gastric lymphoma (p = 0.05). The clinical characteristics and treatment outcome of the 21 patients with primary gastric lymphoma were analyzed according to the BCL-6 status. Significantly more patients in the germline BCL-6 gene group had advanced stage (II, III and IV) of disease. Complete remission rate following primary therapy appeared to be higher for the positive rearrangement group (70% versus 36%), but it was not statistically significant. Those with a rearranged BCL-6 gene also appeared to have better survival at 5 years (58% versus 36%) but the difference was also not statistically significant. On the other hand, patients being classified as low risk according to the International Prognostic Index had significantly better survival at 5 years (89% versus 9%, p = 0.0001). We concluded that BCL-6 gene rearrangement was more commonly found in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of primary gastric origin than its nodal counterpart and it may be playing a more important role in the pathogenesis of gastric large B-cell lymphoma. There was a trend that the BCL-6 gene rearrangement was associated with a more favorable outcome in patients with gastric large B-cell lymphoma but the difference was not statistically significant.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: W P
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Y L
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Kwong
authors.forename: W S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.forename: F C
authors.initials: FC
authors.lastname: Ho
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D015321:Gene Rearrangement; D006801:Humans; D016393:Lymphoma, B-Cell / Q000235:genetics*; D016403:Lymphoma, Large B-Cell, Diffuse / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D051560:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-6; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D051560:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-6; D014157:Transcription Factors