The profile of primary gastrointestinal lymphoma in Egyptian patients

Abstract EN

Introduction : Forty percent of all non-Hodgkin's lym-phomas arise at extra-nodal sites with the gastro-intestinal tract as the commonest site.

The gastro-intestinal lympho-mas are a diverse group of neoplasm which may arise as primary malignancies from within the gastro-intestinal tract or secondary tumors that occur as part of a systemic nodal disease.

Methods : A total of 87 cases of primary gastrointestinal lymphomas were obtained from the Pathology Department at the National Cancer Institute, Cairo University from the years 1998-2000.

Twenty four cases were presented as resection specimens with node dissection and the remaining 63 cases were biopsies.

Clinical records were reviewed regarding the topographic and demographic data.

Histopathology diagnosis was revised according to the WHO-REAL classification.

Immunophenotyping was done to all cases.

Results : primary gastro-intestinal lymphoma constituted 7 % of all total gastro-intestinal malignancies and 6.2 % of all non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cases.

Mean age was 31.4 years, with a range of 3-75 years.

The male to female ratio was 1.8.

Lymphomas of small intestine contributed (40.2 %) ; stomach was second in frequency (38 %), while colorectal was the least common site (21.8 %).

Regional lymph nodes were involved in 13 (54.2 %) cases.

Three different histologic subtypes were identified: a) Diffuse large cell lymphoma was the commonest (44.8 %), b) Bur-kitt's lymphoma was the second common (33.4 %), and c) Mucosal associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma was the least common (21.8 %).

Large cell lymphoma showed the highest incidence of regional lymph node involvement (64.2 %).

All cases were positive for CD20 and negative for CD45RO.