Analysis of clinical characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of 46 patients with primary gastrointestinal non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Primary gastrointestinal non-Hodgkin lymphoma (PGI NHL) is one of the most common types of extranodal lymphoma, accounting for ~30-50% of all extranodal lymphomas. The aim of the present study was to investigate the clinical characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of patients with PGI NHL. A total of 46 patients with PGI NHL (mean age, 50 years) were enrolled in this study, with a male:female ratio of 1.3:1. The most common site of PGI NHL was the stomach (52.2%), followed by the colon (34.8%) and small intestine (8.7%). The most common symptoms of PGI NHL included abdominal pain or discomfort (91.3%), loss of appetite (65.2%) and weight loss (56.5%) and the most common pathological subtype of PGI NHL was diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) (78.3%). Lesions were identified in 95.7% of PGI NHL patients under preoperative endoscopic examination, whereas the diagnosis rate was only 21.7% during preoperative endoscopic biopsy. All 46 patients underwent surgical treatment and 36 also received postoperative chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The follow-up time was 6-70 months in 37 PGI NHL patients, with 1-, 3- and 5-year survival rates of 81.1, 62.16 and 50.0%, respectively. The 5-year survival rate differed significantly according to clinical stage (P=0.002) and tumor size (P=0.0017) among patients with PGI NHL. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the 5-year survival rate between patients who received surgery alone and those who received surgery plus postoperative chemotherapy or radiotherapy (P=0.1371). Furthermore, there were no statistically significant differences in gender (P=0.127), clinical stage (P=0.828), histological subtype (P=1.000) and surgical modality (P=0.509) between patients with primary gastric non-Hodgkin lymphoma (PG NHL) and those with primary intestinal non-Hodgkin lymphoma (PI NHL). In conclusion, PGI NHLs are a heterogeneous group of diseases, whereas clinical stage and tumor size were identified as adverse prognostic factors of PGI NHL. Further studies, including a larger number of patients treated with surgery alone, are required in order to elucidate the precise role of surgery combined with postoperative chemotherapy or radiotherapy in the prognosis of PGI NHL.