Tryptase- and chymase-positive mast cells as possible prognostic factor in patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Abstract

Objectives. The aim of the study was to identify potential prognostic factors in Hodgkin's lymphoma-HL patients by means of assessment of the influence of mast cells on clinical characteristics of the disease. Patients adn methods. Tryptase-and chymase-positive mast cell density was assessed in order to correlate it with histological type, staging, sex and age of patients. Tissue specimens were taken from a group of 72 patients treated for Hodgkin's lymphoma in the Department of Internal Medicine and Oncological Chemotherapy of the Silesian Medical Academy in Katowice from 1990 to 2002. The analyzed group consisted of 44 men (age 16-73 years, av. 39.2) and 28 women (age 15-73 years, av. 36.5) presenting 5 histological types of HL according to the WHO classification. Overall survival (OS) for the group ranged from 3 to 169 months (av. 64.5) while disease free survival (DFS) was from 4 to 167 months (av. 44.8). Results. The highest MCD-T and MCD-C was observed in NS while the lowest had characterized LD. A statistically significant difference in MCD-T was noted between NS and LD (p=0.0002). Despite the fact that increased MCD-T and MCD-C was observed in stage III of the disease and the lowest in stage IV. No correlation were found between MCD and stage, sex or age. Overall survival was assessed in correlation with the histological type and showed to be the best in MC and the worst in NS. Conclusions. Tryptase and chymase positive mast cell density is related to the histological type of HL. Increased mast cell density correlates with worse prognosis in patients with HL.

May Mast Cells Have Any Effect in New Modalities of Cancer Treatment?

“…And human tumors in which MCD is supposed to correlate with a poor prognosis include HL, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, follicular and angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (Molin, 2002;Gratzinger, 2007;Ribatti, 2009;Taskinen, 2010;). Amazingly, in some studies, human tumors in which MCD is supposed to correlate with a good prognosis include HL, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma (Koster, 2005;Hedström, 2007;Rygoł, 2007;Ribatti, 2009;). Although it is hard to explain these conflicting results above and in the literature, they may be associated with different methodologies used in studies such as timing of biopsy (e.g.…”

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“…Yano et al (1999) reported that mast cell infiltration around gastric cancer cells correlates with tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Normal mast cells have also been found to exist during the development of other soft tissue tumors such as malignant lymphoma and Hodgkin's lymphoma (Fukushima et al 2006;Hedstrom et al 2007;Rygol et al 2007). Chemical mediators released from mast cells were thought to be responsible for the enhanced proliferation of tumor cells.…”