Malignant lymphoma in the Miyazaki district: analysis of 237 biopsy cases

Pretreatment biopsy specimens of 237 consecutive patients with malignant lymphoma, who presented to us from 1979 to 1982, were reviewed and reclassified. According to the new classification proposed by the Lymphoma Study Group of Japan (LSG), there were 226 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) which was further classified as diffuse lymphoma (216 cases), follicular lymphoma (4 cases), mycosis fungoides (4 cases), and others (2 cases). The 216 cases of diffuse NHL were subdivided into small cell (2 cases), medium-sized cell (71 cases), mixed (7 cases), large cell (92 cases), pleomorphic (40 cases), lymphoblastic (3 cases), and Burkitt's type (1 case) lymphoma. Cell surface marker studies using conventional methods were performed on 65 NHL patients, of whom 45 showed T-cell marker and 11 B-cell marker, and 8 had neither marker. The average survival periods were 13.1 mo for 107 patients with NHL, 27.9 mo for those with mycosis fungoides and 70.0 mo for 10 patients with Hodgkin's disease. Patients with adult T-cell leukemia survived for an average of only 5.5 mo. Histologically diffuse pleomorphic type had the worst prognosis. T-cell lymphoma appeared to have a poorer prognosis than B-cell lymphoma.