Primary gastrointestinal follicular lymphoma: single-center 12-year experiences

Primary gastrointestinal follicular lymphoma (GI-FL) is very rare and its natural course is barley known. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical characteristics of primary gastrointestinal follicular lymphoma (GI-FL).

From May 1996 to October 2008, the records of five patients diagnosed with primary GI-FL were retrieved from pathological files and retrospectively analyzed in terms of characteristics of endoscopic and clinical findings.

The five patients consisted of 3 males and 2 females with a median age of 52 years. Abdominal pain was the most common (n=4, 80%) symptom. The most frequent site was the terminal ileum in the small bowel (n=3, 60%). Endoscopic findings were 3 of mass forming type, 1 of irregular ulcer type and 1 of whitish granular type. Three cases (60%) had a component of diffuse large B cell lymphoma. All cases received chemotherapy. While complete remission occurred in every patient, relapse occurred in the two patients with a higher grade and more advanced stage than the other cases. At a median follow-up time of 37 months (range, 27-58 months; mean, 38.8 months), four patients (80%) were disease free and one patient had died of cardiovascular disease.

In South Korea, primary gastrointestinal follicular lymphoma is very rare and symptomatic. Endoscopic findings were variable from early whitish granular lesions to advanced mass forming lesions.