In patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia, both flow-cytometry and RQ-PCR are equally suited for MRD assessment as long as a sensitivity of 10<sup>-4</sup> shall be achieved.MRD diagnostics targeting the IGHV gene is complex and requires extensive knowledge and experience because the junctional regions of each lymphoma have to be identified before the patient-specific RQ-PCR assays can be designed for MRD monitoring.
The heterogeneous representation of IGHV genes in HIV-NHL may be related to specific pathways of antigen stimulation, or to differences in host's immune dysregulation and lymphoma histogenesis.
In classic RT, 18/23 B-CLL cases (78%) showed clonal progression to DLBCL with identical IgVH sequences in both lymphoma components, whereas in 5 cases (22%) the DLBCL was clonally unrelated.
Persisting monoclonal bands for immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region (VH) representing the lymphoma clone have been described in up to 50% of patients in CR.
In three of five patients who had interpretable results, a distinct, monoclonal, VH family-specific band profile was obtained from the cerebral and systemic lymphoma.
To further elucidate the role of antigen selection in the evolution of gastric low-grade MALT-type lymphoma, we analyzed intraclonal variations of the immunoglobulin heavy-chain variable region (Ig VH) genes expressed in three cases of lymphoma.