Peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets of newly diagnosed DLBCL patients and their dynamic changes with rituximab based immunochemotherapy

The purpose of this study was to explore lymphocyte subsets of newly diagnosed DLBCL patients, and dynamics along with treatment of R-CHOP. A total of 40 DLBCL patients were enrolled. ALC of grade III-IV DLBCL patients was significantly lower than that of health controls (1.33*10E9/L vs 1.89*10E9/L, p = 0.003), mostly attributing to decreased CD4+ cells (p = 0.012). And serum LDH level of patients was negatively correlated with ALC (p = 0.033). ALC progressively decreased along with treatment, so as to CD3+, CD4+ and CD19+ cells, while proportion of CD4+ and CD8+ cells increased significantly after two cycles' treatment (p < 0.05). CR of ALC low (<1.18*10E9/L) group was lower than that of ALC high group (37.5% vs 73.3%), though not statistically significant (p = 0.179).