Original article Chromosomal abnormalities of 200 Chinese patients

Background: The distribution of the histopathological subtypes of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) is different among various geographical areas. However, there are few reports concerning cytogenetic findings of NHL, especially T-cell lymphoma, in Asian people. Patients and methods: We analyzed the chromosomal abnormalities of 200 adult patients with NHL in Taiwan and correlated the non-random aberrations with the histological subtypes. Results: One hundred and thirty-eight patients (69%) had B-cell lymphoma. The incidence of the t(14;18) in total lymphoma was lower in Taiwan (12%) than in the West (20–30%), but its inci-dence in follicular lymphoma was comparable between the two areas (17 of 28 patients, 61 % versus 50–60%). Sixty-two patients (31%) had T-cell lymphoma, including 11 angiocentric T/natural killer (NK)-cell lymphoma and only two angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AILD). The recur-rent chromosomal abnormalities in T-cell lymphoma comprised 6q deletion (30%), 11q deletion (20%), 17p deletion (16%), 17 (16%), –Y (14%) and + 8 (11%). Angiocentric T/NK-cell lym-phoma had a significantly higher frequency of 1q duplication (P = 0.001), 6p duplication (P <0.001) and 11q deletion (P = 0.011) than other T-cell lymphoma. The incidences of + 3 and + 5, two com-mon abnormalities in AILD, were quite low in T-cell lymphoma in Taiwan (4 % and 2%, respect-ively), compared with those in the West (16–32 % and 15%, respectively). The 11q deletion, not a common aberration in T-cell lymphoma in western countries, occurred quite frequently in Taiwan. Conclusions: The chromosomal aberrations of NHL are quite different among various geographical areas, which may reflect the differences in the distribution of the histological subtypes of lymphoma among various areas. Key words: chromosomal abnormalities, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, T-cell lymphom