Genomic and microenvironmental landscape of stage I follicular lymphoma, compared with stage III/IV

Abstract

Although the genomic and immunemicroenvironmental landscape of follicular lymphoma (FL) has been extensively investigated, little is known about the potential biological differences between stage I and stage III/IV disease. Using next-generation sequencing and immunohistochemistry, 82 FL nodal stage I caseswere analyzed and comparedwith 139 FL stage III/IV nodal cases.Many similarities in mutations, chromosomal copy number aberrations, and microenvironmental cell populationswere detected. However, therewere also significant differences inmicroenvironmental and genomic features. CD8- T cells (P= .02) and STAT6 mutations (false discovery rate [FDR],0.001)weremore frequent in stage I FL. In contrast, programmed cell death protein 1-positive T cells, CD68-/CD163- macrophages (P