Increase of CD3+CD7− T cells in bone marrow predicts invasion in patients with T-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

Abstract

Background The T-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (T-NHL) patients with bone marrow (BM) invasion have a poor prognosis. Although BM biopsy is still a confirmed diagnosis method, the low sensitivity restricts its use to detect the minimal BM invasion. It is of great clinical significance to establish a rapid and highly sensitive method to evaluate BM invasion. Methods We conducted a retrospective study of 85 patients with new diagnosed T-NHL patients enrolled in our institute. The bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNCs) cells were isolated, stained with different combinations of antibody and subjected to flow cytometry analysis. Results We found that CD3 + CD7 − T cells increased significantly in the BM in T-NHL patients with BM invasion. The patients were divided into the low and high groups according to the cutoff value of 1.035% obtained by analyzing the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the percentage of CD3 + CD7 − T cells of nucleated cells at diagnosis. The ratio of invasion in high group was markedly higher than that in low group. Furthermore, CD3 + CD7 − T cells presented significantly higher level of programmed cell death-1 (PD-1), lymphocyte-activation-gene-3 (LAG3) and CD4/CD8 ratio. Conclusions Our study revealed the percentage of CD3 + CD7 − T cells of nucleated cells in BM was a potential diagnostic predictor of BM invasion with T-NHL.