Diagnostic Significance Of Bcl-2 Protein Expression In Non-Hodgkin’ s Lymphomas

¹Solafa El- Sharawy, ²Ebrahim Awad, ¹Hanaa Abd El-Masih and ¹Mohamed Awad

Departments of ¹Clinical Pathology, Hematology unit and ²Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine, Mansoura Faculty of Medicine, El-Mansoura, Egypt.

The pathogenesis of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHLs) represents a multistep process involving progressive and clonal accumulation of genetic lesions which affect the proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Bcl-2 is a category of oncogenes that act mainly on pathway of programmed cell death (apoptosis). On this basis, we planned this study to evaluate the diagnostic significance of Bcl-2 protein detection in NHLs. Bcl-2 protein expression was studied by Flow Cytometry, while its distribution was assessed by immunohistochemistry in lymphoid cells and tissues from 42 newly diagnosed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients. Bcl-2 was detected in 61.9% of NHLs patients and was higher in patients with low grade (71.4%) than intermediate (61.1 %) and high (60%) grade lymphoma patients. the highest percentage was found among patients with follicular lymphoma (75%). It was found that Bcl-2 was higher in stages III and IV (71.4% & 68.7% respectively) than stages I and II (33.3% & 50% respectively). It is concluded that Bcl-2 is a good diagnostic marker for NHL and can differentiate NHLs from reactive lymphadenitis. Immunohistochemistry and Flow Cytometry are useful tools for Bcl-2 assay, however, the immunohistochemistry has the advantage of immunolocalization of the affected lymph node.