Publication Date:
2005-11-16
Description:
Immune dysfunction is known to contribute to lymphomagenesis in the context of immunosuppressive therapy and infection with HIV. The current study was undertaken to test whether low grade but progressive forms of lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and follicular lymphoma (FL), might be associated with systemic immunologic dysfunction as evaluated by flow cytometry. Because of recent studies suggesting a tumor initiating function for infiltrating macrophages in AIDS lymphoma (Zenger et al, Cancer Research62:5536–42,2002), we investigated the immunophenotype of both monocytes and T cells in blood from patients with recurrent MCL and FL. Heparinized blood was taken from 13 individuals with MCL and 6 with FL, both sets of patients previously treated with an average of 4 cycles of combination chemotherapy +/− Rituxan. No patient had received any therapy during the 3 months prior to the current study. Cell surface antigens CD14, CD16, HLA-DR, CD4, CD8, and CD38 were studied in the two diseases and results were compared to age matched controls. Blood from MCL patients showed an immunophenotypic pattern, similar to blood phenotypes described for patients infected with HIV. The %CD4 population was significantly lower than normal controls (p
Print ISSN:
0006-4971
Electronic ISSN:
1528-0020
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
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