A correlation study between IgH gene rearrangement and orbital lymphoma removal operation prognosis.

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between IgH gene rearrangement and orbital MALT (mucose-associated lymphoid tissue) lymphoma removal operation prognosis, and to quantify the effect of IgH gene rearrangement on primary orbital MALT lymphoma prognosis. PATIENTS AND METHODS Fifty-eight patient cases with primary orbital MALT lymphoma were included in this study. Orbital lymphoma specimens were embedded in paraffin for sectioning. IgH gene rearrangement was detected using PCR. The correlation between IgH gene rearrangement and the patient recurrence and survival rates were determined using statistical analysis. The aforementioned rates were calculated and a survival curve was determined. p-values lower than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS We found that the 5-year disease-free survival rate was 90.8% in patients with orbital MALT lymphoma (mean value 56.7 months, range 52-60 months). The use of IgH gene rearrangement detection methods found that the non-recurrence rate of primary orbital MALT lymphoma cases was 79.3%. Survival analysis revealed that IgH gene rearrangement was significantly correlated with recurrence of orbital MALT lymphoma (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS IgH gene rearrangement detection can be improved by the combined usage of multiple primer pairs, especially family specific primers. In the future, detection of IgH gene rearrangement may be used as a novel marker to predict the prognosis of patients with primary orbital MALT lymphoma.