Follow-up Study of a Cutaneous Adult T-Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma Patient by Southern Blot Analysis

Abstract

<h3>To the Editor.—</h3> Gene rearrangement analysis has been widely used for confirming the clinical, histologic, and immunohistologic diagnosis of lymphoma. In theArchivesin 1988,¹we described a 60-year-old woman with cutaneous-type adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL). She started as a smoldering ATL with only skin symptoms and was diagnosed as having cutaneous ATL because the DNA samples obtained from skin lesions alone revealed a monoclonal rearrangement of T-cell receptor (TCR) gene and a monoclonal integration of human T-cell leukemia virus I (HTLV-I) into the host genome. We performed a 3-year follow-up study of this patient, from early in the clinical course until the death of the patient, using two probes. The DNA samples were obtained repeatedly from the patient's skin tumors, peripheral lymphocytes, and cells from ascites. These samples were prepared as mentioned elsewhere²and Southern blot analysis was made by our previously described method.^3,4As shown