Advances in Hematology (Jan 2011)

Expression of Thymidine Phosphorylase in Lymph Nodes Involved with Mycosis Fungoides and Sézary Syndrome

  • Xingcao Nie,
  • Rekha Bhat,
  • Essel Dulaimi Al-Saleem,
  • Eric C. Vonderheid,
  • J. Steve Hou

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/875135
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2011

Abstract

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Thymidine phosphorylase may be overexpressed in both neoplastic cells and tumor stromal cells in a variety of malignancies. Our study explores thymidine phosphorylase expression in lymph nodes (LNs) from patients with mycosis fungoides (MF) or Sézary syndrome (SS). In MF/SS, the LNs may have a pathologic diagnosis of either dermatopathic lymphadenopathy (LN-DL) or involvement by MF/SS (LN-MF). We performed immunohistochemical staining on MF/SS lymph nodes using antibodies to thymidine phosphorylase, CD68, CD21, CD3, and CD4. In both LN-DL and benign nodes, thymidine phosphorylase staining was noted only in macrophages, dendritic cells, and endothelial cells. In LN-MF, thymidine phosphorylase expression was also noted in subsets of intermediate to large neoplastic T cells. Concurrent CD68, CD21, CD3, and CD4 staining supported the above observations. Similar results were noted in the skin and in LN-MF with large cell transformation. Other T-cell lymphomas were also examined (total 7 cases); only enteropathy-type T-cell lymphoma (1 case) showed TP positivity in neoplastic T lymphocytes. We demonstrated that thymidine phosphorylase staining is present in neoplastic T cells in mycosis fungoides. The exact mechanism needs further investigation.