Comparison of germinal center markers CD10, BCL6 and human germinal center-associated lymphoma (HGAL) in follicular lymphomas.

BACKGROUND:Recently, human germinal center-associated lymphoma (HGAL) gene protein has been proposed as an adjunctive follicular marker to CD10 and BCL6. METHODS:Our aim was to evaluate immunoreactivity for HGAL in 82 cases of follicular lymphomas (FLs)--67 nodal, 5 cutaneous and 10 transformed--which were all analysed histologically, by immunohistochemistry and PCR. RESULTS:Immunostaining for HGAL was more frequently positive (97.6%) than that for BCL6 (92.7%) and CD10 (90.2%) in FLs; the cases negative for bcl6 and/or for CD10 were all positive for HGAL, whereas the two cases negative for HGAL were positive with BCL6; no difference in HGAL immunostaining was found among different malignant subtypes or grades. CONCLUSIONS:Therefore, HGAL can be used in the immunostaining of FLs as the most sensitive germinal center (GC)-marker; when applied alone, it would half the immunostaining costs, reserving the use of the other two markers only to HGAL-negative cases.

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