Molecular characterization of Burkitt lymphoma in the breast or ovary
Shaymaa Elgaafary, Cristina López, Inga Nagel, Inga Vater, Susanne Bens, Monika Szczepanowski, Sietse Aukema, Rabea Wagener, Lydia Hopp, Hans Binder, Laurence de Leval, Wolfgang Hiddemann, Reiner Siebert
Abstract
Breast and ovary have been described as rare but typical sites of presentation of Burkitt lymphoma (BL) in females, particularly after puberty. We revised a historic series of 44 lymphomas of the breast or the ovary in women diagnosed between 1973 and 2014 as BL. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was applied to all, and array-based copy number analysis as well as expression profiling to a subset of those cases. Of the 42 cases evaluable for FISH, 19 cases showed an IG-MYC translocation but only 9 of those fulfilled the criteria of the current WHO classification for the diagnosis of BL. Those nine cases resembled BL of other sites with regard to molecular features. Our findings along with literature data suggest that breast and ovarian BL (1) seem to be rarer than hitherto assumed, (2) share typical molecular features with other BL, and (3) predominantly affect women in the fertile age.