[Long-term results in highly malignant stage I and II non-Hodgkin's lymphomas during management with polychemo- and...

In 159 patients treated from 1976-1986 with an age median of 62 (16-85) years the survival probability amounted to 66% after ten years, where stage I (n = 82) with 77% was more favourable than stage IIA (n = 54) with 60% and stage IIB (n = 23) with 43%. With 61% the prognosis of the 7th to 9th decade of age (n = 82) was not worse than that of younger age groups (n = 77) with 70%. In prognostic respect immunoblastic (n = 49), centroblastic (n = 65) and unclassifiable (n = 45) subtypes as well as sexes do not differ and, therefore, they could be evaluated in total. With 81% the relapse-free survival time after sequential or simultaneous combination of polychemo- and large-scale radiotherapy the relapse-free survival time was markedly higher in stage IA (n = 45), stage IB (n = 5) and stage IIA (n = 26) than after single radiotherapy (n = 21) with only 30%. Even in elder patients the combined method was so far not accompanied by a higher complication rate so that this procedure may be considered as an essential progress in the treatment of highly malignant lymphomas. Thus, certain uncertainties as to insufficient division of stages which have frequently to be taken into account in elder people due to their limited invasive burdening capacity may be neglected.