Clinical Implications of CD30 Expression in Aggressive B-Cell Lymphomas.

BACKGROUND: US Food and Drug Administration approval of brentuximab vedotin for treatment of CD30-positive relapsed/refractory lymphomas, including classical Hodgkin lymphoma and anaplastic large cell lymphoma, initiated significant interest in researching CD30 expression in other therapy-resistant or relapsed lymphomas. We evaluated CD30 expression in 116 cases of aggressive B-cell lymphomas diagnosed at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center between 2000 and 2012 with the purpose of assessing the benefit of treatment with brentuximab. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We studied CD30 expression in types of aggressive B-cell lymphomas not previously studied, including Burkitt lymphoma, high-grade (grade III) follicular lymphoma, mixed grade III follicular lymphoma/diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), posttransplantation lymphoproliferative disease large B-cell lymphoma, and primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma. RESULTS: CD30 expression was found in 37.5% of DLBCL and 46.2% of other non-DLBCL aggressive B-cell lymphomas. CONCLUSION: Expression of CD30 in patients with both DLBCL and other aggressive B-cell lymphomas and the absence of MYC oncogene-driven proliferation in the majority of these tumors suggests that brentuximab may be a particularly effective form of targeted therapy in the subset of patients with high CD30 expression.