Insights into the molecular pathogenesis of follicular lymphoma arising from analysis of geographic variation

Abstract

Incidence rates of follicular lymphoma (FL) inexplicably vary markedly between Western and Asian countries. A hallmark of FL is the bcl-2translocation, characterized by 1 of 2 common breakpoints known as major breakpoint region (MBR) and minor cluster region (mcr). We analyzed previously published data to compare rates of bcl-2 translocation in FL across geographic regions. Available data from the literature suggest that the incidence of bcl-2 in healthy persons in the absence of FL may be as high as 50% in Western and Asian populations. However, in FL our results show that the frequency of bcl-2 positivity was significantly higher for US than for Asian populations (P < .0001). This pattern ..