Nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin Lymphoma in children. Retrospective clinical and morphological analysis of the patients. One Center experience

Lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin's lymphoma (NLPHL) is a unique variant of Hodgkin's lymphoma (LH) with a relatively good prognosis. The tumor differs markedly from classic LH and is one of the forms B cell lymphoma. Despite the indolent course, it has a tendency to multiple and often late relapses. Microscopically, the tumor has 6 distinguishable morphological patterns. Despite the prevalence in all age groups, most of the original studies were performed among adult patients, while there are only several publications among the children's population. The aim of this study – retrospective analysis pediatric group of the NLPHL, evaluate the prognostic implication of histopathologic variants. Сomparing our own data with another study groups. This study is supported by the Independent Ethics Committee and approved by the Academic Council of the Dmitry Rogachev National Medical Research Center of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology. Study was included the biopsies aged 3 to 18 years (median 10.5 years) of 28 patients with NLPHL from the archive by Department of Pathology Dmitry Rogachev National Medical Research Center of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology from 2014 to 2020. The tumor more commonly affects males (20 boys and 8 girls, male-female ratio, 2.5:1). Complete clinical information was available in 24 patients. The clonal molecular assays were performed in 2 cases of relapse/progression of the disease. The Fisher's exact test was used to compare and evaluate the statistical significance of the differences in groups of patterns. There were no significant differences between typical patterns and variants, probably due to the small number of the patients. Further research will create a predictive scale for stratification by the risk groups. In cases of poor response to therapy, there is a risk that the pattern will turn into a prognostically more unfavorable variant.