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High expression of tumor-infiltrating macrophages correlates with poor prognosis in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

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Abstract

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is characterized by its clinical and biological heterogeneity. Although the International Prognostic Index (IPI) provides a clinical model for risk stratification of patients with DLBCL, notable variability in outcome is still observed within the same IPI category. Tumor-infiltrating macrophages (also called Tumor-associated macrophages) are the major component in the microenvironment of DLBCL. Their correlation with the prognosis of DLBCL remains controversial. Using a CD68 antibody in immunohistochemical analysis, we studied the expression of CD68 in 112 Chinese patients with DLBCL, with 65 patients (58%) categorized as low CD68 expression and 47 patients (42%) as high CD68 expression. The complete response (CR) rate of patients with low CD68 expression was higher than that with high CD68 expression (66.1% vs. 51.6%), but there was no statistical significance (P = 0.060). The median survival time of patients with low CD68 expression was not achieved and that of high expression was 41 months (P = 0.029). The results suggest that higher expression of CD68 tended to yield poor treatment outcome of DLBCL.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Ms. Yuwen Du (Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University) for the linguistic revision and proofreading of this paper.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Hui-qiang Huang.

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Qi-chun Cai and Hong Liao are co-first authors and contributed equally to this article.

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Cai, Qc., Liao, H., Lin, Sx. et al. High expression of tumor-infiltrating macrophages correlates with poor prognosis in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Med Oncol 29, 2317–2322 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-011-0123-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-011-0123-6

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