Central nervous system lymphoma in immunocompetent patients: The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System experience

Abstract

Of the 74 immunocompetent patients diagnosed between July 2004 and June 2011 at the North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center with primary central nervous system lymphoma, 71 (95.9%) had diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCL). The median patient age was 68years (range: 19–87years) with a slight male preponderance (1.1:1). The overall median survival time was 21months. For patients older than 70years, the median survival time was 8months while for those 70years or younger, the median survival time was 27months (p<0.01). Female patients had a worse prognosis than male patients (p<0.05, median survival time, 17months compared to 23months). We had enough data from 52 of these 71 patients to define the lymphomas as either germinal center B-cell-like (GCB) or activated B-cell-like (ABC) DLBCL. Of these 52 patients, 42 (80.8%) had ABC DLBCL while only 10 (19.2%) had GCB DLBCL. The patients in the GCB subgroup seemed to survive longer than the patients in the ABC subgroup, although the difference did not reach statistical significance. No statistically significant difference in overall survival was seen between patients with BCL-6 positive or negative DLBCL; or between patients with BCL-2 positive or negative DLBCL.