Chromosome abnormalities in malignant lymphoma: biologic and clinical correlations.

Among the hematologic malignancies, the clinical and biologic significance of chromosome abnormalities have been most extensively studied in the acute leukemias and chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Clonal chromosome abnormalities are now identified in essentially all cases of CML and in most cases of acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). In the acute leukemias, specific chromosome abnormalities have now been correlated with morphology (ANLL), immunologic phenotype (ALL), and various clinical features. In both ANLL and ALL, they have been found to be clinically important as independent risk factors for predicting response to treatment, remission duration, and survival [1-4]. Limited data are available regarding chromosomal abnormalities in malignant lymphoma, other than Burkitt's. The few reported studies of banded chromosomes have generally included small numbers of cases, and primary tumor masses have rarely been the major source of tissue studied. Moreover, for a given lymph node, chromosome findings have rarely been correlated with histology and immunologic pheno-