[The new WHO classification of malignant lymphoma. After "REAL" a further step on the road to a worldwide consensus].
For decades, rival classification systems for malignant lymphoma that were hardly even comparable have existed side by side: the Kiel Classification has so far been used in the German-speaking parts of Europe and the "Working Formulation" mainly in the USA. At the beginning of the 1990's it became possible to overcome this unsatisfactory situation, when pathologists in the Old and New Worlds joined forces to elaborate a new classification for lymphoma, the Revised European-American Lymphoma (REAL) Classification, based on current scientific data. One new feature is the absence of a malignancy grading that is applicable to more than one entity. The system centres on the definition of distinct lymphomatous diseases that can be diagnosed with a high degree of reproducibility. Morphological and clinical characteristics are used for diagnosis, but so, consistently, are immuno-phenotypical and molecular genetic ones. An international cooperative study has confirmed the high reproducibility and clinical practicability of this tentative classification system. An international panel of pathologists appointed by the World Health Organization has updated the REAL classification, which is expected to be published in the updated version in 2001 under the title New WHO Classification. The articles that follow are based on the new WHO classification.
Stein
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Institut für Pathologie, Universitätsklinikum Benjamin Franklin, Freie Universität Berlin.
D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D008223:Lymphoma / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D014481:United States; D014944:World Health Organization