The translocation of 14q32 with 18q21 is the most common chromosomal abnormality in human non-Hodgkins lymphomas. The translocation is commonly associated with the follicu- lar lymphoma which is relatively rare in Korean. About 30% of large cell lymphomas in West- ern countries have same translocation and this finding suggests that this subset of large cell lymphoma would be evolved from foilicular lymphoma. Recently, the translocation breakpoint has been cloned and polymerase chain reaction(PCR) for detecting bcl-2/JH(immunoglobulin heavy chain gene joining segment) rearrangement, the crossover site of trans1ocation, was in- troduced. Detection of bcl-2/JH rearrangement in Korean large cell lymphoma tissue should lead to better understanding of the biology of lymphomas in Korea. So, this study was designed to evaluate the frequency of bcl-2/JH rearrangement in Korean non-Hodgkins lymphomas and to compare the result with those of other countries. The DNA from total 22 cases of non-Hodg- kin's lymphomas were examined with PCR and Southern hybridization with radiolabeled oligonucleotide probes. DNAs were extrated from 15 unfixed frozen and 7 formalin-fixed parffin-embedded biopsy specimens. The t(14; 18) chromosomal translocation, resulting in bcl-2/ JH fusion gene, was detected in 1(9%) of 1 1 diffuse large cell lymphomas and 2(14.3%) of 14 B cell lymphomas. The low frequency of bcl-2/JH rearrangement suggests different genetic consequences in lymphomagenesis of Asian. However, the clinical implication of bcl-2/JH rear- rangement is doubtful in Korean due to quite low frequency.
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