Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphomas of Immunoblastic Type Are a Major Reservoir for MYC-IGH Translocations

The immunoblastic variant of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (IB-DLBCL) has recently been recognized as an aggressive lymphoma type with inferior prognosis as compared with other DLBCL variants. At the same time, the presence of MYC rearrangements in DLBCL has been shown to indicate shorter survival in R-CHOP-treated patients. In this study, we investigated the occurrence of MYC gene rearrangements in IB-DLBCL versus non-IB-DLBCL in a large series. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization with an MYC break-apart and MYC-IGH fusion probe, we found that 13/39 evaluable IB-DLBCLs (33%) harbor translocations involving MYC, in contrast with only 5/68 (7%) in the non-IB-DLBCL group (P