Microarray studies of prognostic stratification and transformation of follicular lymphomas.

Follicular lymphoma (FL) is a common, indolent malignancy with a natural history of transformation to the more aggressive form of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in 25-60% of cases. In order to understand the pathogenesis of lymphoma genesis and evolution, the molecular changes characteristic of FL and transformed DLBCL are being studied. The most common abnormality associated with FL is the t(14;18)(q32;q21) chromosomal translocation, but many more molecular aberrations have been found in patient subgroups. The study of gene expression profiling using DNA microarrays enables large scale, comparative analyses of gene expression. Its implementation in the research on FL has led to advances in disease diagnosis and classification and has the potential to lead to pathogenesis-based individualised therapies.