Aim: To analyze the clinicopathologic features and the prognosis of primary intestinal lymphoma.
Methods: Patients were included in the study based on standard diagnostic criteria for primary gastrointestinal lymphoma, and were treated at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Centre between 1993 and 2008.
Results: The study comprised 81 adults. The most common site was the ileocaecal region. Twenty-two point two percent patients had low-grade B-cell lymphoma. Fifty-one point nine percent patients had high-grade B-cell lymphoma and 25.9% patients had T-cell lymphoma. Most patients had localized disease. There were more patients and more early stage diseases in the latter period, and the origin sites changed. The majority of patients received the combined treatment, and about 20% patients only received nonsurgical therapy. The wverall survival and event-free survival rates after 5 years were 71.6% and 60.9% respectively. The multivariate analysis revealed that small intestine and ileocaecal region localization, B-cell phenotype, and normal lactate dehydrogenase were independent prognostic factors for better patient survival. Surgery based treatment did not improve the survival rate.
Conclusion: Refined stratification of the patients according to the prognostic variables may allow individualized treatment. Conservative treatment may be an optimal therapeutic modality for selected patients.
Keywords: Gastrointestinal lymphoma; Gastrointestinal oncology; Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; Prognostic factors.