Can a specifically-aimed pathologic classification overcome the difficulties in defining HIV-associated lymphomas?

Abstract

High grade B-cell systemic lymphomas in HIV-infected patients exhibit pleomorphic features as well as some overlap between established histologic subtypes thus highlighting the difficulties in defining them precisely by making use of the classifications for non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) proposed before the AIDS epidemic. A series of HIV-associated systemic lymphomas including 114 NHL and 25 Hodgkin's disease (HD) cases were morphologically and immunopheno-genotypically investigated at the Centro di Riferimento Oncologico, Aviano, Italy during a period of nine years. The International Working Formulation (WF) for NHL, the updated Kiel Classification and, later, morphologic variants of high gr..