Prediction of Survival in Follicular Lymphoma Based on Molecular Features of Tumor-Infiltrating Immune Cells

Patients with follicular lymphoma may survive for periods of less than 1 year to more than 20 years after diagnosis. We used gene-expression profiles of tumor-biopsy specimens obtained at diagnosis to develop a molecular predictor of the length of survival.

Gene-expression profiling was performed on 191 biopsy specimens obtained from patients with untreated follicular lymphoma. Supervised methods were used to discover expression patterns associated with the length of survival in a training set of 95 specimens. A molecular predictor of survival was constructed from these genes and validated in an independent test set of 96 specimens.