Nasu Atsuko, Gion Yuka, Nishimura Yoshito, Nishikori Asami, Sakamoto Misa, Egusa Yuria, Fujita Azusa, Yoshino Tadashi, Sato Yasuharu
Division of Pathophysiology, Okayama University Graduate School of Health Sciences, Okayama 700-8558, Japan.
Division of Anatomic Pathology, Okayama University Hospital, Okayama 700-8558, Japan.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2021 Apr 24;11(5):766. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11050766.
Differentiation between adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) and peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified (PTCL-NOS), is often challenging based on pathological findings alone. Although serum anti-HTLV-1 antibody positivity is required for ATLL diagnosis, this information is often not available at the time of pathological diagnosis. Therefore, we examined whether the expression of SOX4 and p16 would be helpful for differentiating the two disease entities. We immunohistochemically examined SOX4 and p16 expression (which have been implicated in ATLL carcinogenesis) in 11 ATLL patients and 20 PTCL-NOS patients and classified them into four stages according to the percentage of positive cells. Among the ATLL cases, 8/11 (73%) were SOX4-positive, while only 2/20 (10%) PTCL-NOS cases expressed SOX4. The mean total score was 4.2 (standard deviation (SD): 0.61) in the ATLL group and 0.50 (SD: 0.46) in the PTCL-NOS group ( < 0.001). Positive expression of p16 was noted in 4/11 (36%) patients with ATLL and 3/20 (15%) patients with PTCL-NOS, with mean total scores of 1.9 (SD: 0.64) and 0.70 (SD: 0.48) in the ATLL and PTCL-NOS groups, respectively ( = 0.141). These results suggest that SOX4 may be strongly expressed in ATLL compared to PTCL-NOS cases. Therefore, it may be helpful to perform immunohistochemical staining of SOX4 when pathologists face challenges discriminating between ATLL and PTCL-NOS.
仅基于病理结果区分成人T细胞白血病/淋巴瘤（ATLL）和外周T细胞淋巴瘤，非特指型（PTCL-NOS）往往具有挑战性。尽管ATLL诊断需要血清抗HTLV-1抗体呈阳性，但在病理诊断时通常无法获得该信息。因此，我们研究了SOX4和p16的表达是否有助于区分这两种疾病实体。我们对11例ATLL患者和20例PTCL-NOS患者进行了SOX4和p16表达（与ATLL致癌作用有关）的免疫组织化学检查，并根据阳性细胞百分比将它们分为四个阶段。在ATLL病例中，11例中有8例（73%）SOX4呈阳性，而PTCL-NOS病例中只有2例（10%）表达SOX4。ATLL组的平均总分是4.2（标准差（SD）：0.61），PTCL-NOS组为0.50（SD：0.46）（<0.001）。11例ATLL患者中有4例（36%）p16呈阳性表达，20例PTCL-NOS患者中有3例（15%）呈阳性表达，ATLL组和PTCL-NOS组的平均总分分别为1.9（SD：0.64）和0.70（SD：0.48）（P = 0.141）。这些结果表明，与PTCL-NOS病例相比，SOX4在ATLL中可能强烈表达。因此，当病理学家在区分ATLL和PTCL-NOS面临挑战时，进行SOX4免疫组织化学染色可能会有所帮助。
