Background: The optimal management of primary gastric lymphomas has yet to be defined. In the past surgery was advocated as the optimal first step for patients with PGL. Recently, an increasing number of studies suggest that chemotherapy is as effective as surgery.
Methods: Fourteen patients with PGL were treated with chemotherapy alone. For patients with low-grade lymphoma, chemotherapy consisted of mitoxantrone 5 mg/sqm on days 1 to 3. Treatment courses were administered every 3 weeks up to a maximum of 6 cycles. Patients with high-grade lymphoma received chemotherapy according to the CHOP schedule every 4 weeks up to a maximum of 6 cycles. Two patients with high-grade lymphoma were treated as low-grade lymphoma patients (one because of age and poor performance status, the other because she refused chemotherapy that would cause hair loss). Two patients with low-grade lymphomas who did not respond to mitoxantrone were crossed over to CHOP.
Results: All patients were evaluable for toxicity, 13 for response to therapy and survival. Toxicity was mild or moderate. Neither perforation nor hemorrhage was observed. Eleven patients achieved a complete remission (85%), 1 a partial remission (7.5%) and 1 underwent disease progression (7.5%). At a median follow-up of 12 months (range 4-44 months) all complete responders are alive and disease free.
Conclusions: Although the number of evaluable patients is too small to draw any final conclusions, chemotherapy seems to be as effective as surgery in PGL, and stomach preservation improves the quality of life of the patients.