Am J Clin Pathol. 2002 Oct;118(4):589-98.

CD5+ follicular lymphoma: a clinicopathologic study of three cases.
Barry TS, Jaffe ES, Kingma DW, Martin AW, Sorbara L, Raffeld M, Pittaluga S.
Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.

Follicular lymphoma (FL) is a low-grade lymphoma that typically lacks CD5 antigen expression. We report 3 cases of FL with unusual expression of CD5. All cases showed histologic features of FL, including effaced nodal architecture, follicular growth pattern, and a spectrum of grades from 1 to 3 using World Health Organization criteria. In flow cytometric studies, all 3 cases showed a light chain-restricted, CD19+, CD20+ B-cell population coexpressing CD10 and low-level CD5. Immunohistochemical studies demonstrated an identical B-cell immunophenotype with weak expression of CD5 and coexpression of bcl-2 protein and the germinal center-associated markers, CD10 and bcl-6 protein. None of the cases showed expression of CD43, cyclin D1, or IgD. By molecular analysis, immunoglobulin heavy chain gene rearrangements were demonstrated in all 3 cases, and 2 of 3 cases had a t(14;18). These cases highlight the difficulty classifying these lymphomas by flow cytometric studies alone and emphasize the importance of recognizing FL in the differential diagnosis of CD5+ B-cell lymphomas.

PMID: 12375647 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]