Clinico-pathologic features and outcome of Japanese patients with peripheral T-cell lymphomas

We studied the clinico-pathologic features and treatment outcome of patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL). This study included 215 patients with T/natural killer (NK)-cell lymphoma, including 59 with PTCL-unspecified (PTCL-U), 42 with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AILT) and 20 with anaplastic large-cell lymphoma (ALCL). Most of the analyses were performed on patients with AILD, ALCL and PTCL-U. The patients with AILT and PTCL-U tended to be older than those with ALCL. Stage III/IV disease was seen in 90.5% of the AILT cases, 55% of the ALCL cases and 67.8% of the PTCL-U cases. In addition, 61.9% of the AILT cases had an international prognostic index (IPI) of H-I or H risk. The 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) rates were 72.2 and 76.1% among the ALCL cases, 40.7 and 42.2% among the PTCL-U cases and 31.2 and 49.3% among the AILT cases, respectively. Among the patients with PTCL-U, the 5-year PFS and OS rates in group low (L), low-intermediate (L-I), high-intermediate (H-I) or high (H) risk group of IPI were: 47.6 and 56.1%, 55.6 and 53.8%, 42.4 and 40.1% and 9.1 and 9.1%, respectively. The 5-year PFS and OS rates in group 1, 2, 3 or 4 by prognostic index of PTCL-U (PIT) were: 88.9 and 85.7%, 57.1 and 54.9%, 33.5 and 28.8% or 13.3 and 13.3%, respectively. The 5-year PFS and OS rates among patients who received CHOP therapy, CyclOBEAP [cyclophosphamide (CPA), vincristine (VCR), bleomycine, etoposide, doxorubicin (DXR), prednisone (PDN)] therapy or autologous stem cell transplantation were: 22 and 25.7%, 59 and 61.7% or 33.3 and 60%, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that the PIT score was associated with OS and PFS. These results indicate that the presence of bone marrow (BM) involvement is an independent prognostic factor which may predict both OS and PFS. PTCL-U is a heterogeneous disease with regard to histological type and pathological state. Because PTCL-U is generally not responsive to CHOP therapy, new treatment strategies need to be developed.