Increase of CD3(+)CD7(−) T cells in bone marrow predicts invasion in patients with T-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

BACKGROUND: The T-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (T-NHL) patients with bone marrow (BM) invasion have a poor prognosis. Although BM biopsy is still a confirmed diagnosis method, the low sensitivity restricts its use to detect the minimal BM invasion. It is of great clinical significance to establish a rapid and highly sensitive method to evaluate BM invasion. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of 85 patients with new diagnosed T-NHL patients enrolled in our institute. The bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMNCs) cells were isolated, stained with different combinations of antibody and subjected to flow cytometry analysis. RESULTS: We found that CD3(+)CD7(−) T cells increased significantly in the BM in T-NHL patients with BM invasion. The patients were divided into the low and high groups according to the cutoff value of 1.035% obtained by analyzing the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the percentage of CD3(+)CD7(−) T cells of nucleated cells at diagnosis. The ratio of invasion in high group was markedly higher than that in low group. Furthermore, CD3(+)CD7(−) T cells presented significantly higher level of programmed cell death-1 (PD-1), lymphocyte-activation-gene-3 (LAG3) and CD4/CD8 ratio. CONCLUSIONS: Our study revealed the percentage of CD3(+)CD7(−) T cells of nucleated cells in BM was a potential diagnostic predictor of BM invasion with T-NHL.