Histopathologic and Immunohistochemical Evaluation of Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma Variant (1997-2003)

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma is a heterogeneous group of tumors that together constitute about 20% of Non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The common features of these tumors are the large size of the neoplastic cell, B cell derivation, progressive clinical signs that need high effective chemotherapy regimens. Aiming to classify together all malignant lymphoma with the mentioned characteristics, WHO classified this tumor based on a combination of morphological, phenotgpic, genetic and clinical features as diffuse large B cell lymphoma. In this study we tried to investigate these lymphoma subgroups based on clinicopathological specifications. 106 Cases with diagnosis of diffuse large B cell lymphoma were studied and categorized by reviewing their H&E slides. B cell lineage of this lymphoma was confirmed by an Immunohistochemical study. Different subtypes of diffuse large B cell lymphoma in this study included centroblastic variant (56.6%), anaplastic variant (34%), plasmablastic variant (2.8%), primary mediastinal large B cell lymphoma (1.9%), spindle shape variant (0.94%) and T cell rich B cell lymphoma (0.94%).The average age of patients was 47.4 years and the male to female ratio was 1.7.Nodal involvement was 56.7% and extranodal involvement was 43.3%. Findings of our study were compatible with western countrie's incidence of diffuse large B cell lymphoma subtypes.