cyclooxygenase-2 expression in lymphoma in north-west of iran.

background: lymphomas are a group of malignancies affecting b, t and nk cells. cox-2 enzyme is one of the known inflammatory factors which increase in the inflammation process. increase in cox-2 expression inhibits apoptosis and increases tumor cells invasion and angiogenesis. increase in the cox-2 gene expression is seen in a group of cancers .specific cox-2 inhibition also can be beneficial in some cancers through apoptosis stimulation. materials & methods: in a descriptive-analytic study, cox-2 expression degree was evaluated in patients with non-hodgkin lymphoma. patients’ cases were used to study the following variables: gender, age, lymphoma type, and stage of the disease, the degree of the disease, existence of b symptom, extranodal involvement, and response to treatment, death, and ldh levels. paraffin-embedded tissue blocks from 153 cases of non-hodgkin and hodgkin lymphoma were selected for immunohistochemical staining for cox-2 expression. results: cox-2 level were reported positive in four (4.7%),patients with non-hodgkin lymphoma and four (5.7%), patients with hodgkin lymphoma. during the seven year follow-up, 15 patients were suffering from the disease relapse and 9 patients died during this period. there were no significant relation between others quantitative and qualitative variables and cox-2 expression .also, there was no relation between cox-2 and type of lymphoma (p=0.476). conclusion: according to our results, there was no relation between cox-2 expression and type of lymphoma. we recommend more patients are needed for more assess cox-2 expression. on the other hand, in our study most of the patients had azari race, may be, have an effect in our results.