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Paediatric lymphoblastic T‐cell leukaemia and lymphoma: one or two diseases?
Author(s) -
Burkhardt Birgit
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
british journal of haematology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.907
H-Index - 186
eISSN - 1365-2141
pISSN - 0007-1048
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2141.2009.08006.x
Subject(s) - lymphoblastic lymphoma , lymphoma , medicine , bone marrow , immunophenotyping , t cell , disease , t cell lymphoma , immunology , pathology , flow cytometry , immune system
Summary There is ongoing discussion on whether paediatric acute T‐cell lymphoblastic leukaemia (T‐ALL) and paediatric lymphoblastic T‐cell lymphoma (T‐LBL) are two distinct entities or whether they represent two variant manifestations of one and the same disease and the distinction is arbitrary. Both show overlapping clinical, morphological and immunophenotypic features. Many clinical trials use the amount of blast infiltration of the bone marrow as the sole criterion to distinguish between T‐ALL and T‐LBL. The current World Health Organization classification designates both malignancies as T lymphoblastic leukaemia/lymphoma. However, subtle immunophenotypic, molecular and cytogenetic differences suggest that T‐ALL and T‐LBL might be biologically different in certain aspects. The current review summarizes and discusses the recent advances and understanding of the molecular profile of paediatric T‐ALL and T‐LBL.