Immunologic and cytogenetic markers expressed in non-Hodgkin lymphoma of head and neck.

Very often, the first doctor who examines a patient with malignant lymphoma is an ENT specialist, because non-Hodgkin lymphoma is five times more frequent than Hodgkin disease in the head and neck region. Approximately 25% of extranodal lymphoma occurs in the head and neck and extranodal presentation is twice as frequent as nodal presentation. This paper present a study of the patients from ENT, Head & Neck Surgery Clinic of Coltea Clinical Hospital, Bucharest, Romania, diagnosed with malignant lymphoma. We developed a specific scheme for collecting data about patients, together with pathology details, immunology and cytogenetic markers. We tried to establish a relation between immunologic and cytogenetic markers and the clinical evolution of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. For this study, we analyzed data regarding CD10, CD5, CD20, Bcl-2, Bcl-6, Ki67 expression obtained from 58 patients with follicular lymphoma. An attempt was made to correlate the presence of certain immunohistochemical and cytogenetic markers with the evolution and aggressiveness of the disease, and we can say that Bcl-2 is positive in all tumor subtypes, being associated relatively frequently with CD5 expression, and is a marker of poor prognosis, while Bcl-6 is positive especially in the tumor forms associated with the predominance of small cells and is a marker of favorable prognosis.