Hepatitis B virus-associated diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: Unique clinical features, poor outcome, and hepatitis B surface antigen-driven origin

// Lijuan Deng 1 , Yuqin Song 1 , Ken H. Young 2 , Shimin Hu 2 , Ning Ding 1 , Weiwei Song 1 , Xianghong Li 3 , Yunfei Shi 3 , Huiying Huang 1 , Weiping Liu 1 , Wen Zheng 1 , Xiaopei Wang 1 , Yan Xie 1 , Ningjing Lin 1 , Meifeng Tu 1 , Lingyan Ping 1 , Zhitao Ying 1 , Chen Zhang 1 , Yingli Sun 1 , Jun Zhu 1 1 Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education), Lymphoma Unit, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China 2 Department of Hematopathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA 3 Department of Pathology, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing, China Correspondence to: Jun Zhu, e-mail: lymphoma2015@hotmail.com Keywords: hepatitis B virus, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, hepatitis B surface antigen, B-cell receptor, complementarity determining region 3 Received: April 30, 2015      Accepted: July 09, 2015      Published: July 22, 2015 ABSTRACT While the epidemiologic association between hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is established, little is known more than this epidemiologic evidence. We studied a cohort of 587 patients with DLBCL for HBV infection status, clinicopathologic features, and the immunoglobulin variable region in HBV surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive patients. Eighty-one (81/587, 13.8%) patients were HBsAg-positive. Compared with HBsAg-negative DLBCL, HBsAg-positive DLBCL displayed a younger median onset age (45 vs. 55 years), more frequent involvement of spleen or retroperitoneal lymph node (40.7% vs. 16.0% and 61.7% vs. 31.0% respectively, both p < 0.001), more advanced disease (stage III/IV: 76.5% vs 59.5%, p = 0.003), and significantly worse outcome (2-year overall survival: 47% versus 70%, p < 0.001). In HBsAg-positive DLBCL patients, almost all (45/47, 96%) amino acid sequences of heavy and light chain complementarity determining region 3 exhibited a high homology to antibodies specific for HBsAg, and the majority (45/50, 90%) of IgHV and IgLV genes were mutated. We conclude that 13.8% of DLBCL cases are HBV-associated in HBV-endemic China and show unique clinical features and poor outcomes. Furthermore, our study strongly suggests that HBV-associated DLBCL might arise from HBV antigen-selected B cells.