Background:
Aim:
To evaluate the clinical characteristics, treatment regimens, and outcome of the patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Methods:
1459 patients diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma between 1971 and 2008 were retrospectively evaluated. Staging was done according to Murphy classification system. All patients were treated with chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy. Chemotherapeutic regimens included COP or derivatives, COMP, LMB/LMT, modified COP+Adriamycine, BFM, and others.
Results:
1110 newly diagnosed patients out of 1459 patients were eligible for analysis. There were 816 males and 294 females with a median age of 6 years (0.3 to 19). Stage distributions were 20, 121, 746, and 223 patients in stage I, II, III, and IV, respectively. Primary tumor localisations were abdomen, mediastinum, head and neck, peripheral lymph nodes, generalized disease, and extranodal disease, and others in 591, 133, 207, 50, 96, 17, and 16 patients, respectively. COP+Adriamycine was used in 424 patients, LMB in 216, LMT in 102, COP and derivatives in 231, COMP in 29, BFM in 26, others in 82. Overall (OS), and event-free survival (EFS) rates in whole group were 50 and 46% at 10 years, respectively. Median survival time was 13 years. OS rates were 67%, 61%, 48%, 48% in regimens of LMB/LMT, COMP, COP+Adriamycine, and BFM (p=0.0001), respectively. The survival improved in last decade to 70% with the LMB/LMT regimens The other significant prognostic factors on survival were stage (p=0.0001), histopathology (p=0.003), and tumor localisations (p=0.0008).
Conclusions:
This is one of the largest series in a single center. LMB/LMT regimens have achieved the best survival rate in last decade. High dose methotrexate regimens should be used in teratment of NHL