To study BCL10 expression in ocular adnexal lymphoma in the US population and its association with clinical outcomes.

Institutional, retrospective study.

Immunohistochemistry was performed with antibody against BCL10 on two tissue microarray blocks that were constructed with paraffin-embedded tissues from the same cohort of 48 patients with ocular adnexal lymphomas. The main outcomes that were measured include extraorbital involvement, recurrence rate, and time to recurrence. The median length of the follow-up period was 40 months.

Aberrant BCL10 expression (nuclear [moderate intensity] and cytoplasmic [weak to moderate intensity] staining) was observed in 10 of 33 cases (30.3%) of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma, in 4 of 10 cases (40%) of follicular lymphoma (grade 1, 9 cases; grade 2, 1 case), in 0 of 2 cases of diffused large B-cell lymphoma, in 0 of 1 case of chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma and in 1 of 1 case (100%) of mantle cell lymphoma. There were no differences in clinical parameters at examination (ie, average age, gender, site of occurrence, laterality, extraorbital involvement at diagnosis), recurrence rate, and time to recurrence for patients (MALT lymphoma or follicular lymphoma) with or without aberrant nuclear BCL10 expression.

Aberrant BCL10 expression can occur in other types of ocular adnexal lymphomas besides MALT lymphoma. Ocular adnexal MALT lymphoma may have slightly lower frequency of aberrant BCL10 expression than gastric/pulmonary MALT lymphomas that have been reported in the literature. Furthermore, aberrant BCL10 nuclear expression in ocular adnexal lymphoma does not seem to correlate with clinical outcome. Further studies that include a larger number of cases and longer follow-up period are needed to confirm our observation.