The influence of histologic type on survival in early extranodal non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in head and neck.

Abstract

Since the Rappaport classification provides little information for the prognosis of extranodal non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), the Kiel classification was used for 71 patients with head and neck extranodal NHL, stages IE and IIE. The ratios of low grade malignancy ( LGM ) and high grade malignancy ( HGM ) were about 60 and 40%, respectively. The lesions comprised 37 non-thyroid lymphomas and 34 thyroid lymphomas. 8 cases of thyroid NHL did not fit into a rigid classification scheme, and were separatively analyzed. In the whole group of patients and the subset of 37 patients with non-thyroid NHL, the 5-year survival rates for LGM were significantly better than for HGM . LGM showed a more favorable prognosis than HGM in 26 patients with thyroid NHL, but the difference was not statistically significant. 8 cases of thyroid NHL showed diffuse proliferation of centrocytes or centroblasts in which various numbers of nodules consisting of large centroblasts and centrocytes with high mitotic activity were scattered. The cases behaved as HGM . From these findings, we suggest that the Kiel classification in extranodal NHL is helpful.