BCL-2 Expression Correlates With Lower Proliferative Activity in the Intermediate- and High-Grade Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphomas: An Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and Southwest Oncology Group Cooperative Laboratory Study

cycle transition has been suggested by recent studies in murine models. To investigate the clinical relevance of these laboratory studies, a group of 116 paraffin-embedded non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) biopsy specimens (Working For-mulation Groups D-H, and J) from a cooperative group study of cellular DNA content were analyzed for the 14;18 translo-cation using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based meth-ods and, if sufficient tissue remained, for BCL-2 and BAX expression by immunohistochemistry. The results of these studies were then compared with the results of the previ-ously performed flow cytometric analysis of ploidy and proliferative activity (S-phase-fraction). BCL-2 expression was inversely associated with proliferative activity (P 5.001; n 5 41), but there was no association between staining for Bax and %S-phase. Ploidy was not associated with eithe