Multilobated non‐hodgkin's lymphoma. A clinicopathologic entity

Abstract

Multilobated non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) have recently been recognized as an NHL variant. During a period of 10 years we observed 30 individuals with NHL in which more than 30% of the malignant cells had a characteristic multilobation. The immunologic phenotype was determined in 14 of these cases. One was of T‐cell lineage, and the others exhibited B‐lymphoid markers. Sixty‐eight percent of the patients presented with extranodal localizations. In the clinical follow‐up a complete remission was observed in 78% of patients with a mean duration of 37 months (range, 5 to 120 months). The actuarial survival after 5 years was 45%. From these data we conclude that multilobated NHL are comparable to diffuse, large cleaved‐cell NHL of an intermediate grade malignancy according to the Working Formulation or are comparable to the diffuse centrocytic‐centroblastic NHL according to the Kiel classification. The neoplastic cells are to be considered as variants of follicle center cells, but the clinicopathologic correlation indicates that multilobated NHL represent a distinct nosologic entity. Copyright © 1988 American Cancer Society