Sequential nonsurgical and surgical staging of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The yield of specific diagnostic procedures in the staging of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was assessed in 170 consecutive patients who were evaluated with a sequence of diagnostic procedures. Stage III or Stage IV disease was established in 141 of 170 patients (80%) by nonsurgical procedures, including lymphangiography (positive in 78%), bone-marrow biopsy (positive in 39%), percutaneous liver biopsy (positive in 21%), and peritoneoscopy-directed liver biopsy (positive in 29% of those tested). Staging laparotomy showed disease outside conventional nodal irradiation fields in 21 of 26 patients with a positive lymphangiogram, but in only three of 17 patients with a negative lymphangiogram. The yield of staging procedures was highest in patients with nodular lymphomas, only 6% of whom were Stage I or Stage II after staging, but was lowest in patients with histiocytic lymphoma, 30% of whom had localized disease. This study shows that the presence of disseminated disease can be detected in the majority of patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma without the use of staging laparotomy.