Recently, the PUMCH ophthalmology team led by Professor Zhang Meifen published an original article titled “Cerebrospinal Fluid Interleukin-10 Biomarker for Vitreoretinal Lymphoma” in the “American Journal of Ophthalmology” (Q1, ranked among top 5% journals according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences), revealing that the levels of cerebrospinal fluid interleukin-10 (CSF IL-10) in patients with vitreoretinal lymphoma (VRL) were closely associated with the VRL disease progression. This study received funding support from the “central high-level special program of clinical research”.

VRL, a type of primary central nervous system lymphomas (PCNSL), predominantly affects individuals with non-Hodgkin diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (>95%), with a median onset age of 60. While 56% to 90% of patients with primary VRL eventually develop central nervous system (CNS) lesions, little was known about the CFS of VRL patients, even fewer on the relationship between CFS IL-10 and the clinical characteristics of the patients.

Having dedicated to VRL research for a decade, the team from the Department of Ophthalmology and of Hematology at PUMCH has established the diagnostic process for VRL and treated more than 100 patients. In this study, the research team retrospectively reviewed 41 patients diagnosed with VRL between September 2015 and December 2021, all of whom underwent lumbar puncture currently with diagnostic vitrectomy. The cohort consisted of 12 males and 29 females, with an average age of 57.5 years. None of the patients had a history of systemic lymphoma prior to diagnosis, but intracranial lesions were detected by head MRI in 12 patients during the diagnosis of ocular lymphoma. Among the 41 patients, 34 had bilateral  involvement and 7 with unilateral involvement, and contralateral eye involvement was observed in 2 cases during the follow-up.

The results of the study showed that CSF IL-10 levels were elevated in 90.2% of VRL patients and 89.7% of primary VRL patients. Additionally, CSF IL-10 levels were not correlated with aqueous humor IL-10 levels, and were already elevated prior to the recurrence of CNS lesions.

This study further confirms that primary VRL should not be regarded solely as an ophthalmic disease, but rather as a systemic disease. Moreover, CSF IL-10 is a potentially important biomarker for VRL, especially in the monitoring of intracranial lesion recurrence. Further investigation is needed on the relationship between CSF IL-10 levels, patient prognosis and CNS lesion progression.

Written by Zhang Xiao

Translated by Liu Haiyan

Edited by Wang Jingxia, Chen Xiao, Zhang Xia and Wang Yao