Abstract
Many gene abnormalities have been detected in malignant lymphomas. In order to analyze the pathological grading of malignant lymphoma, we investigated the expression of bcl-2 protein due to the t (14 ; 18) translocation and the expression of mutated type-p53 protein due to the point mutations in the tumor suppressor gene, p53 which is located on chromosome 17p13.1. We also examined the cell proliferation profile immunohistochemically by using proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and Ki-67 as proliferating cell markers. Twenty patients with responsive lymph node lesions (that is, reactive lymphadenopathy) and 85 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were used as subjects in this study. Bcl-2 protein was expressed in follicular lymphomas at a high frequency, whereas all cases of follicular centrocytes in the responsive lesions were negative, indicating that Bcl-2 is a very important marker to distinguish follicular lymphoma from reactive lymphadenopathy. PCNA and Ki-67 as well as p53 were good markers to evaluate the degree of histological malignancy of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
