Increased CD59 protein expression is associated with the outcome of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma treated with R-CHOP

The objective was to investigate the expression and prognostic value of CD59 expression in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who underwent rituximab-cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine, and prednisone (R-CHOP). The immunohistochemical expressions of CD59 in 186 well-characterized DLBCL patients were evaluated using tissue microarrays and then were related to known tumor- and patient-related variables and to survival. The results show that CD59 expressions were not statistically different between the germinal center B-cell-like-type and the activated B-cell-like-type. We also analyzed the relationships of CD59 expression with overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in DLBCL patients who were uniformly treated with R-CHOP. The high expression of CD59 was correlated with poor OS and PFS compared with the low-expression CD59. Our findings indicate that the CD59 level at onset is an independent predictor of the prognosis of DLBCL patients treated with R-CHOP.