Clinicopathological analysis of immunohistochemical expression of retinoic acid-related orphan receptor-γt in peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified

Peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified (PTCL-NOS) is cytologically and phenotypically heterogeneous. Retinoic acid-related orphan receptor-γt (RORγt) is a transcription factor that regulates the differentiation of naïve CD4+ helper T cells to Th17 cells. In the present study, we immunohistochemically confirmed the expression of RORγt in PTCL-NOS. Pathological and clinical investigations were performed for 170 cases of PTCL-NOS. RORγt-positive cases accounted for 17.6% (30/170) of the total cases, and they showed a significantly higher frequency of CD8 positivity (P = .033), lower counts of white blood cells (P = .030) and neutrophils (P = .039) in the peripheral blood, higher levels of hypergammaglobulinemia (P = .031), a higher frequency of a complete response (P = .009), and a tendency for a lower International Prognostic Index (P = .061) and better overall survival (P = .0806). These results suggest that RORγt-positive PTCL-NOS could be a subpopulation of PTCL-NOS. Further research associated with this genomic abnormality at the transcriptional level is needed to confirm the results of this study.