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Original Articles: Research

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma: another neoplasm related to the B-cell follicle?

, , , &
Pages 3378-3386 | Received 29 Jan 2015, Accepted 30 Mar 2015, Published online: 26 May 2015
 

Abstract

Although there has been increased attention paid to the critical nature of nodal involvement in chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL), the B-cell compartment it is most closely related to and its relationship to the follicle remain uncertain. A clinicopathologic investigation of 60 extramedullary biopsies of LEF1+ CLL/SLL, including 29 cases with perifollicular/follicular (PF/F) growth, was therefore performed. A subset of PF/F cases demonstrated inner mantle zone preservation or intra-mantle zone growth. All PF/F and 16/31 other cases contained CD21+ follicular dendritic cells. No cytogenetic, IGHV mutational or gene usage differences were seen between PF/F and diffuse cases. PF/F cases were more often kappa positive (p < 0.03) and had fewer involved nodal sites (p = 0.0004). These findings suggest that at least a subset of bona fide CLL/SLL is related to the follicle, most likely the outer mantle zone, and that at least a subset of the diffuse cases may represent “later” disease.

Potential conflict of interest

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at www.informahealthcare.com/lal.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Table I.

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