Pulmonary mucosa-associated

lymphoid tissue lymphoma with strong nuclear B-cell CLL/ lymphoma 10 (BCL10) expression and novel translocation t(1;2)(p22;p12)/immunoglobulin k chain-BCL10 Mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma is associated with recurrent chro-mosomal translocations t(11;18)(q21;q21), t(14;18)(q32;q21), t(1;14)(p22;q32) and t(3;14)(p14.1;q32).1 2 While t(11;18)(q21;q21) fuses the N-terminus of the API2 (11q21) gene to the C-terminus of the MALT1 (18q21) gene and generates a functional API2–MALT1 pro-duct, t(1;14)(p22;q32), t(14;18)(q32;q21) and t(3;14)(p14.1;q32) bring the BCL10(1p22), MALT1 (18q21) and FOXP1(3p14) genes, respectively, under the control of the immu-noglobulin heavy chain (IGH, 14q32) enhan-cer, leading to their overexpression.1 Interestingly, the oncogenic activity of the first three chromosomal translocations is linked by the physiological role of BCL10 and MALT1 in antigen receptor-mediated nuclear factor kappa B (NFkB) activation.1 Primary pulmonary MALT lymphomas show heterogeneous cytogenetic abnormalities, including aneuploidy and translocations. Among the translocations described in MALT lymphoma of this site, t(11;18)(q21;q21) is the most common, occurring in up to 50 % of cases, and t(14;18)(q32;q21) and t(1;14)(p22;q32) are relatively rare.3–5 The overall incidence of t(1;14)(p22;q32) is approximately 3 % in MALT lymphomas of different sites, and can be up to 10 % in pulmonary cases.4–6 Recently, Achuthan et al7 reported t(1;2)(p22;p12) involving the BCL10 and the immunoglobulin kappa (IGK) light chain genes as a novel translocation in a gastric MALT lymphoma. Here we report the first case of pulmonary MALT lymphoma with this translocation, indicating that the t(1;2)(p22;p12) is a recurrent cytogenetic event in MALT lymphoma