Review Article Molecular Pathogenesis of MALT Lymphoma

Copyright © 2015 Katharina Troppan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Approximately 8 % of all non-Hodgkin lymphomas are extranodal marginal zone B cell lymphoma of mucosa associated lymphoid tissue (MALT), also known as MALT lymphoma, which was first described in 1983 by Isaacson and Wright. MALT lymphomas arise at a wide range of different extranodal sites, with the highest frequency in the stomach, followed by lung, ocular adnexa, and thyroid, and with a low percentage in the small intestine. Interestingly, at least 3 different, apparently site-specific, chromosomal translocations and missense and frameshift mutations, all pathway-related genes affecting the NF