Clinicopathologic features of adult EBV-associated B-cell lymphoproliferative disease.

In the present study, 21 cases of adult/late-onset EBV-associated lymphoproliferative disease (AELPD) with an uncertain malignant potential were investigated with regard to their histomorphology, immunophenotype, clonal rearrangement of the heavy chain (IgH) and T-cell receptor (TCR) genes and clinical course. The cases were histomorphologically reevaluated and assigned to one of three morphological groups: mononucleosis-like, Hodgkin-like, or polymorphous. In addition, cases with or without detectable necrosis were investigated for differences in clinical outcome. Overall survival was highest in the group with Hodgkin-like morphology (4/4 patients), followed by patients with mononucleosis-like phenotype (4/5 patients surviving). Cases with polymorphous morphology showed the poorest survival rates with 7/12 patients dead of disease (58%). 4/6 patients with histologically detectable necrosis died (66%), but only 4/15 patients without necrosis (27%). 11/21 cases with AELPD showed clonal rearrangement for IgH (n = 4), TCR (n = 5) or IgH + TCR (n = 2). 5/11 patients with clonal rearrangement died (45%), and this percentage was similar in all of the three subgroups. In conclusion, the present study shows that polymorphous morphology and detection of necrosis in AELPD are frequently linked to a fatal clinical course, whereas Hodgkin-like morphology seems to be associated with a more favourable prognosis. Clonal rearrangement of IgH or TCR is frequent in AELPD, but prognosis is unpredictable from this feature.

Linkage of aggressive prostate cancer to chromosome 7q31-33 in German prostate cancer families.

It has been suggested that chromosome 7q32 contains genes that influence the progression of prostate cancer from latent to invasive disease. In an attempt to confirm this linkage to prostate cancer aggressiveness, 100 German prostate cancer families were genotyped using a panel of eight polymorphic markers on chromosome 7q. We used a multipoint allele sharing method based upon a likelihood ratio test implemented in GENEHUNTERPLUS v1.2 in order to calculate the nonparametric Z(lr) and the associated LOD scores. We applied the aggressiveness of prostate cancer given by the pathological tumour grade of each individual, and the mean age of onset of a family as covariates, and constructed two weighted models. The first (weight(0-1) model) puts weights on families with at least two cases of GIII prostate cancer. The second (weight(0-2) model) also adds weights to families with early and late onset cancer respectively. The unweighted analysis gave no evidence of linkage to chromosome 7q. The Z(lr) scores increased when including the covariates, to 2.60 (P=0.005) using the weight(0-1) and to 3.02 (P=0.001) using the weight(0-2) model for late onset prostate cancer. The associated LOD scores were respectively 1.47 (P=0.009) and 1.98 (P=0.002). The markers that gave most evidence for linkage were exactly in the range of the published prostate cancer aggressiveness region. Our results support a widespread relevance of this locus and suggest that aggressive and late onset prostate cancer is linked to chromosme 7q31-33 in the German population.