Prognostic factors for pleural lymphoma patients.

Prognostic factors in 47 patients with pleural lymphocytic lymphoma developing in chronic tuberculous pyothorax were evaluated using Cox's proportional hazards model. There were 41 men and six women, aged 44-80 (median 61) years. Approximately 70% of the patients had localized disease in Stages I and II, and 30% advanced disease in Stages III and IV. Histologically, 27 patients had the diffuse large, immunoblastic type and 12 had others. In the other seven patients, histological subtyping of the lymphocytic lymphoma was impossible because of degenerative or necrotic changes in the histologic specimens. A diagnosis of lymphocytic lymphoma of B-cell type was made in one case using combined cytologic and surface maker findings on a cell suspension. In addition, immunologic and immunohistochemical studies revealed another 40 cases to be proven B-cell lymphomas. Poor performance status and elevated levels of BUN and GPT were significantly associated with shortened survival in a Cox's proportional hazards model. A poor performance status and high levels of serum BUN and GPT suggested a marked deterioration in a patient's condition. When compared with previous literature describing prognostic factors in patients with B-cell lymphomas and with lymphocytic lymphomas with unfavorable histologies or associated with long-standing inflammations, the only common prognostic factors was performance status. The significance of primary site in predicting survival from lymphocytic lymphoma is discussed.