Follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in Hong Kong Chinese: A retrospective analysis

✍ Scribed by Dr. Raymond Liang; David Todd; T. K. Chan; R. P. Ng; D. Choy; S. L. Loke; F. C. S. Ho

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 551 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0278-0232
• DOI: 10.1002/hon.2900060106

✦ Synopsis

Follicular lymphoma is relatively rare in Hong Kong Chinese. Fifty-two patients with follicular lymphoma were reviewed. The histology was nodular lymphocytic poorly differentiated (NLPD) in 75 per cent, nodular mixed (NM) in 21 per cent and nodular histiocytic (NH) in 4 per cent. Our patients appeared to have a higher proportion of NLPD and a lower proportion of NM lymphoma than the western series. Fifty patients were analysed excluding the two patients with NH lymphoma. They had a median age of 50 and a male to female ratio of 0.92. Seventy-two per cent of them presented with asymptomatic lymph node enlargement. Twenty per cent had B symptoms and 32 per cent bulky tumour. Twelve per cent had stage I disease, 2 percent stage 11, 30 per cent stage I11 and 56 per cent stage IV. A high incidence of bone marrow involvement (48 per cent of all patients) was found.

All seven stage 1-11 patients responded to involved-field radiotherapy alone and none of them has relapsed. The 43 stage 111-IV patients were treated with chemotherapy without deferral and a majority of them received CVP (51 '1 per cent) or chlorambucil alone (34.9 per cent). The complete response rate of stage 111-IV patients was 81 per cent and 26 per cent of the complete responders relapsed. The 5-years disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival of all patients (stage I11 and IV) were 50 per cent and 65 per cent respectively. The DFS curve showed a pattern of continuous relapses. Stage 111 patients appeared to have a better complete response rate, a lower relapse rate and superior disease-free survival than stage IV patients but the differences did not reach statistical significance. However, the overall survival of stage 111 patients was significantly better than stage IV patients @<0.02). Other factors including sex, age, presence of bulky tumour, B symptoms, histologic subtypes and the chemotherapeutic regimes did not significantly affect their prognosis.