[A clinical study of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma]

To have a better understanding of the clinical characteristics of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma.

The clinical data of 24 patients with MALT lymphoma were analyzed.

The patients were divided into two groups according to the initial location of the lymphoma in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract or not. Eighteen patients (75.0%) had GI involvement and six (25.0%) had involvement of other extranodal sites including salivary gland in three, lung in two and bladder in one. Among the 24 cases, 12 were in stage I, 7 in stage II and 5 in stage III-IV at the time of presentation. Fourteen cases underwent endoscopic biopsy and the pathologic diagnoses were in accordance with those of post-operative specimen in 11 but different in 3. Surgical resection was performed alone in 21 patients, with adjuvant chemotherapy in 7 and with adjuvant radiotherapy in 1. Three patients were treated with chemotherapy only. Results of survival analysis showed that the overall survival rate was 58.8% after 1 year, 35.3% after 3 years, 29.4% after 5 years and 5.9% after 10 years. No significant difference in clinical or biologic characteristics was observed between GI and non-GI patients (P > 0.05). The clinical stage and therapeutic measure had no significant relation with the prognosis.

MALT lymphoma is an indolent disease that presents in localized extranodal location without any associated adverse prognostic factor in nearly all the patients and that these patients have a high response rate to treatment and a long survival.