Comparison of clinical features and prognosis between patients with early-stage NK/T-cell lymphoma originating from nasal cavity and Waldeyer's ring

Abstract

Objective To investigate the differences in clinical features and prognosis between patients with stage Ⅰ E-Ⅱ E nasal cavity natural killer (NK)/T-cell lymphoma (NC-NKTL) and Waldeyer's ring NK/T-cell lymphoma (WR-NKTL).Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on 273patients with NK/T lymphoma who were initially treated in our hospital from January 1991 to December 2011.Of these patients,184 had Ann Arbor stage Ⅰ E disease,and 89 had stage Ⅱ E disease;209 had NCNKTL,and 64 had WR-NKTL.A total of 258 patients (94.5％) were first treated with chemotherapy.The majority of patients received CHOP or CHOP-like chemotherapy.The median dose of radiotherapy was 54Gy.Results Compared with NC-NKTL patients,WR-NKTL patients had significantly higher percentages of individuals in stage Ⅱ E and individuals with B symptoms (P ＜0.05 for both).The overall response rates of the two groups after treatment were similar (88.7％ vs 87.9％,P =0.869).The follow-up rate was 96.3％.196 patients were followed up for at least 5 years.The 5-year overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were 52.6％ and 41.4％,respectively.The 5-year OS of NC-NKTL patients was nonsignificantly higher than that of WR-NKTL patients (57.0％ vs 39.0％,P =0.062),while the 5-year PFS of NC-NKTL patients was significantly higher than that of WR-NKTL patients (46.7％ vs 25.8％,P =0.019).Conclusions Patients with early-stage WR-NKTL are more prone to systemic symptoms and cervical lymph node metastasis and have poorer prognosis,as compared with patients with early-stage NC-NKTL,so radiotherapy and prophylactic irradiation should be considered in early stage. Key words: NK/T cell lymphoma, nasal cavity/chemoradiotherapy; NK/T cell lymphoma,Waldeyer's ring/chemoradiotherapy; Clinical features ; Prognosis