Surgical therapy of gastrointestinal non-Hodgkin's lymphomas

Within a period of 13 years 39 patients underwent surgery for primary gastrointestinal non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The stomach was the most frequent site of involvement (26 cases) followed by the small intestine (10 cases) and the large bowel (three cases). Operative procedures included: total gastrectomy (n = 19), subtotal gastrectomy (n = 5), partial gastrectomy (n = 2), small bowel resection (n = 7), right hemicolectomy (n = 5) and sigmoid resection (n = 1). According to Musshoff's modification of the Ann Arbor system, we found stage I in nine, stage II in 12, stage III in two and stage IV in 16 patients. Histological typing according to the Kiel classification showed low-grade malignancy in 11 cases and high-grade in 28. Twenty-eight patients received chemotherapy and/or radiation in accordance with the tumour staging and type of malignancy. The follow-up data were analysed by the method of Kaplan and Meier. Including five patients who died post-operatively from perforated or bleeding lymphomas, the overall 5-year survival rate was 53.8%.