Clinicopathological profile of cutaneous lymphomas--a 10 year retrospective study from south India

This is a retrospective study of cutaneous lymphomas (CL) seen over a ten year period. (January '88-December '97) in Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, S. India. The aims of the study were to describe the clinicopathological profile of CL and correlate it with results of immunophenotyping. Thirty three patients were included of whom 31 had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and two Hodgkin's disease. REAL scheme was used for classification. In the NHL group there were 20 patients with cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL), 7 with cutaneous B cell lymphoma (CBCL), 1 with anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) and 3 patients were unclassifiable. Mycosis fungoides was the most common CTCL (55.5%). Three (15%) of patients had subcutaneous panniculitic T cell lymphoma (SPTL). The duration of the disease was significantly longer (P < .05) in patients with MF as compared to non MF CTCL and CBCL. One patient with Sezary's syndrome was HTLV 1 positive. There was no difference in survival (p = 0.86) after diagnosis in the three main groups.