A unifying microenvironment model in follicular lymphoma: outcome is predicted by programmed death-1--positive, regulatory, cytotoxic, and helper T cells and macrophages.

Purpose: The microenvironment influences outcome in follicular lymphoma. Our hypothesis was that several immune cell subsets are important for disease outcome and their individual prognostic importance should be demonstrable in the same analysis and in competition with clinical factors.

Experimental Design: Seventy follicular lymphoma patients with extreme clinical outcome ("poor" and "good" cases) were selected in a population-based cohort of 197.