Secondary involvement of genitourinary organs in malignant lymphoma.

We examined 322 patients who had died of malignant lymphoma at our institute between 1958 and 1985 in order to study secondary involvement of genitourinary organs (GUO). Secondary involvement of GUO was more common in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) than in Hodgkin's disease. The most commonly affected GUO was the kidney, which was secondarily involved in 121 out of 322 patients (37.6%). The adrenal gland was the second most commonly affected organ: 58 cases (18%) were affected by the disease and 40 of them were associated with renal involvement. Third and fourth were the urinary bladder (8.4%) and the testis (5.9%). Secondary involvement of the bladder in NHL was often accompanied with that of other GUO. Next, the relationship between metastases and histological characteristics in NHL was investigated. However, no significant correlation proved to exist between histological grade and metastases to the GUO.