T-cell-rich large B-cell lymphoma. A study of 30 cases, supporting its histologic heterogeneity and lack of clinical distinctiveness.

To determine whether correlations existed between morphologic and immunophenotypic findings and clinical characteristics, 30 cases of T-cell-rich large B-cell lymphomas (TBL) were evaluated by histopathology, immunostaining, and polymerase chain reaction on paraffin-embedded material. All were characterized by a polymorphic cell composition, including a variable mixture of small and large lymphoid cells and reactive cell. Most cases (87%) fitted into one of three main histologic types of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (diffuse, mixed cell; diffuse, large cell; follicular and diffuse, mixed cell), and one group of eight cases had the prototypic features described by Ramsay et al. (17). All cases showed a component of large CD20(L26)+ MB2+ B cells in a predominant back-ground of reactive T cells (> 50% of the total lymphoid forms). Clonality was demonstrated by light chain restriction in 67% of cases and by rearrangement of the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene and bcl-2 gene in 64% and 28% of cases, respectively. The patients were predominantly men (70%), ages 18-83 years (median of 62.5), and were initially seen predominantly with nodal disease (and extranodal involvement in 20%) at advanced stages (III-IV: 77%). Treatment was mostly aggressive chemotherapy, and the outcomes were favorable (84% alive and well). These features are not distinctive as compared with those of typical large-cell lymphoma, nor did subgroups within the series (prototypic cases versus others; cases with less [< or = 70%] or more [> 70%] T-cell infiltration) significantly differ in clinical presentation or outcome. Thus, this study confirms that TBL, while useful as a diagnostic variant to be distinguished from both peripheral T-cell lymphoma and Hodgkin's disease, is a heterogeneous assortment of diverse histopathologic categories rather than a clinicopathologic entity. The term "T-cell rich" might, however, be usefully retained as a morphologic specification to be added to recognized histologic categories of lymphoma.