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Splenic marginal zone lymphoma is a rare disease, accounting for 1% of all lymphomas. We reviewed our single center experience of 13 patients with splenic marginal zone lymphoma (SMZL). Based on the prognostic model developed by Intergruppo Italiano Linfomi, 31% (4/13) of our patients had good, 38% (5/13) had intermediate and 31% (4/13) had a poor prognosis. The presence of two out of three prognostic factors (anemia, elevated LDH, low serum albumin) assignes the patient into the high risk category. In patients with anemia and an elevated LDH due to hemolysis, the outcome seems to be especially poor. Three out of 13 (23%) cases were complicated by autoimmune hemolytic anemia. All patients with autoimmune hemolytic anaemia (AIHA) died 7-28 months after the diagnosis. The mean follow-up time of those nine patients who are still alive is longer than 5 years (36-100 months). Patients with AIHA had significantly (p < 0.001) worse survival than those without AIHA. The main finding of our study is that the presence of AIHA is an adverse prognostic factor in SMZL.

In many cases, particularly in retrospective studies, only formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples are available for molecular studies. DNA recovered from FFPE tissues generally consists of fragmented small target sequences with chemical alterations. Clonality analysis is not easy on FFPE samples, in fact, it requires even more experience than that of performed on fresh samples or is more complicated than most genomic PCR amplifications for somatic genes. In our study, we have performed a multi-parameter PCR evaluation investigating immunoglobulin heavy chain gene (IgH) and T-cell receptor gamma gene (TCRgamma) rearrangements on non-purified crude lysates of FFPE samples, in order to establish the significance of different variables on performance of PCR amplification. The results showed that a slight decrease in the concentration of primers in combination with a slight increase in MgCl2 and Taq polymerase concentrations, as well as the use diluted crude template and a standard amount of dNTPs can be the modifications of choice while adjusting IgH and TCRgamma clonality tests on poor quality DNA FFPE samples. Using our improved protocol, 74% (17/23) of the tested B-cell lymphomas and 68% (31/46) of the tested T-cell lymphomas demonstrated monoclonal PCR product, proving the applicability of our optimized method. Our experience may be of help during the optimization process in technically difficult cases as well as to determine which parameters and how should be changed to minimize false-negative and false-positive results.