. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Apr 22.

Published in final edited form as: Mod Pathol. 2012 Nov 16;26(0 1):S42–S56. doi: 10.1038/modpathol.2012.178

Table 3.

Differential between DLBCL, BL and B-cell lymphoma unclassifiable, with features intermediate between DLBCL and BL (BLU)

	DLBCL	BL	BLU
Age at presentation	Usually older but can occur at any age	Children, young adults	Older adults
Pathogenesis	May be related to the germinal center (GCB), activated B cell or other pathway	GCB derived	GCB derived
Growth rate	Rapid	Extremely rapid, Ki67 approaching 100%	Extremely rapid but usually less than 100%
Stage	Even distribution, 50% stage 1 or 2	Usually high stage	Usually advanced III/IV
Bone marrow involvement	Uncommon, often terminal	Common	Common
CNS involvement	Unusual	Leptomeningeal disease common at presentation in children and adults⁶⁰	Common
EBV	Uncommon in the absence of immunodeficiency or age-related senescence	>90% in endemic BL 40% in sporadic and HIV-related BL	Negative
MYC translocation	Uncommon, usually a secondary event associated with a complex karyotype	Almost always present as initiating event and single abnormality (MYC simple)	Often double hits with translocations involving MYC, plus BCL2 and/or sometimes BCL6

Abbreviations: BL, Burkitt lymphoma; CNS, central nervous system; DLBCL, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma; EBV, Epstein-Barr virus; GCB, germinal center B cell.