Remodeling of the classification of malignant lymphomas occurring among Japanese based on molecular abnormality

(1)人类恶性淋巴瘤发病机制的研究：恶性淋巴瘤的分类传统上是基于形态学，20世纪80年代，免疫组织化学新技术提高了淋巴瘤分类的准确性。因此，这个时代大多数淋巴瘤的标准分类是基于形态学和免疫学。20世纪90年代，淋巴瘤病例的发病机制开始逐渐明晰。这一领域每年都有显著的进展，而淋巴瘤发病机制的整个方面需要几年的时间才能澄清。目前的研究增加了一些关于淋巴瘤发病机制的新信息，如出版物列表所示。(2)日本人恶性淋巴瘤的种族/地理特异性：日本人恶性淋巴瘤的种族/地理特异性已经被注意到。目前的项目试图阐明这些特异性的分子方面。Epstein-Barr病毒在日本人中更大的贡献，我们的成员发现的新的致癌基因的生物学功能的澄清，或者日本人中HHV-8感染的鉴定将是这条研究线的典型例子。(3)日本人淋巴瘤分类的重塑：随着分子机制的明确，我们收集了日本淋巴瘤病例，并开始从新的分子信息中对其进行分类。到目前为止，我们已经收集了3000多例病例，现在正在用分子方法以及免疫表型和形态学对它们进行分析。

(1) Study on the pathogenesis of human malignant lymphomas :Malignant lymphomas has been classified traditionally on the basis of morphology, in 1980th, a new technology, the immunohistochemistry increased the accuracy of lymphoma classification. Thus, most of the standard classifications of lymphoma on this era are based on morphology and immunology. In 1990th, the pathogenesis of lymphoma cases began to be clarified gradually. Marked progress is noted in this field every year, while the whole aspects of lymphoma pathogenesis takes further years before the clarification. Present studies have added a little of new information on the pathogenesis of lymphomas, as are shown in publication lists.(2) Racio/geographical specificities of malignant lymphomas among Japanese :The existence of racio/geographical specificities of malignant lymphomas among Japanese has been noted. Present projects tried to clarify the molecular aspects of such specificities. Much heavier contribution of Epstein-Barr viruses among Japanese, the clarification of biological functions of new oncogenes that were found by our members, or the identification of HHV-8 infection among Japanese will be the typical example of this line of study.(3) Remodeling of lymphoma classification among Japanese :Together with the clarification of molecular mechanism, we collected Japanese lymphoma cases and started to classify them from new molecular information. So far we could collect over 3000 cases and are now analyzing them with molecular methods as well as immunophenotyping and morphology.