[Treatment of primary gastric lymphoma]

Stomach is the most common location of lymphoma in digestive tract, accounting for 50%-60% of gastrointestinal lymphomas. The most common histological types are low malignant mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma from non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and diffuse large B-cell and marginal zone B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) from NHL. Chronic gastritis secondary to Helicobacter pylori(HP) infection has been considered a major predisposing factor for MALT lymphoma. At present, the most widely accepted initial therapy for localized disease is aimed at the eradication of HP using regimens combining antibiotics and proton-pump inhibitors. The irradiation has become the therapy of choice for patients with early stage MALT lymphoma without HP infection or with persistent lymphoma following antibiotic therapy. In all the patients with advanced disease, treatment options include chemotherapy and the use of monoclonal antibodies. Treatment of DLBCL in stomach is based on aggressive poly-chemotherapy that is usually combined with rituximab. The same guidelines followed for nodal aggressive lymphoma can also be applied to gastric lymphoma with aggressive histology as DLBCL. For localized stages (stages I( and II(), these guidelines suggest front-line therapy with 3 to 4 cycles of standard R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone) followed by radiotherapy. Advanced stage patients (stage IIII() usually undergo only 6 to 8 cycles of R-CHOP in order to obtain a complete remission rate. Nowadays surgery is limited to rare cases and radiotherapy combined or not with chemotherapy represents an effective therapeutic option ensuring long-term, organ-salvage benefits mainly in aggressive histological types.