Translocation of BCL2 and BCL6 to the same immunoglobulin heavy chain locus in a case of Follicular Lymphoma

Abstract

Follicular Lymphoma is a low grade malignancy of mature B-cells. The hallmark chromosome abnormality is the translocation t(14;18) which is observed in 70 – 80% of cases with a translocation t(3;14) present in a further 10%. Rarely both of these translocations, or one of their variants, may be present. These co-incident translocations usually involve different Ig loci or different Ig alleles. We present here a case of Follicular Lymphoma with leukemic presentation and a complex translocation involving the IgH, BCL2 and BCL6 loci. Double oncogene translocations to a single immunoglobulin locus are extremely rare in lymphomas with few cases described to date. To our knowledge this is the first reported case with a complex translocation involving these loci.

Keywords:

• Cytogenetics
• BCL2
• BCL6
• lymphoma