[Radiation therapy of CNS lymphoma]

A retrospective analysis of 22 patients with central nervous system (CNS) non-Hodgkin's lymphomas seen from 1978 to 1989 at Hamamatsu University Hospital was carried out. These were corresponding to 16% (22/137) of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas treated by irradiation during the same period. Six patients had primary intracranial involvement, six had secondary one, five had leptomeningeal involvement and five had spinal cord compression. Median survival of these groups 29 months, 7 months, 6 months and 4 months, respectively. On the case primary intracranial involvement, neurological signs and symptoms and performance status (PS) were improved in most patients. Whole brain irradiation with a dose of 45 Gy to 50 Gy followed by systemic chemotherapy was considered as effective treatment modalities. On the other hands, for the secondary intracranial lymphomas, clinical symptoms and PS were excellently improved by radiation therapy, however these were not reflected to survival. The conditions having primary site on gastrointestinal tract and relapse as systemic dissemination were considerable risk factors for the control of CNS involvement. For these patients, prophylactic chemotherapy should be necessary. Improvement of PS on patients with leptomeningeal lymphomas was obtained in only 3 of 5 cases. These were treated by irradiation on whole spine or neuroaxis and intrathecal MTX injection. We observed 2 cases dying from cerebrovascular accident and one case from leukoencephalopathy. This showed that such combination therapy should be carefully attempted. Five patients having spinal cord compression suffered from paraplegia and none of them had been improved on their symptoms.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)