Background and objective: Mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma is a histological type of marginal zone non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Its clinical features and prognosis have seldom been reported because of its indolent clinical course. This study was to explore the clinical features and prognosis of this disease.
Methods: Clinical data of 90 pathologically confirmed mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma patients, treated from December 1997 to February 2007, were analyzed.
Results: Of the 90 patients, 23 (25.6%) had gastric lymphoma and 67 (74.4%) had non-gastric lymphoma, with a median age of 52 (range, 13-77); 75 (83.3%) had stage I-II disease and 15 (16.7%) had stage III-IV disease; 31 (34.4%) had multiple organ involvement and 40 (44.4%) had nodal involvement. The percentage of nodal involvement was significantly higher in non-gastric group than in gastric group (P=0.040). The complete remission (CR) rate after treatment was 72.1%. The patients were followed up for a median of 31.4 months. The 5-year overall survival rates of patients with and without nodal involvement were 58.7% and 88.4%, respectively (P=0.012). The median time to progression was significantly longer in patients with IPI score of 0-2 than in those with IPI score of > 2 (61.9 months vs. 5.2 months, P=0.005), and was significantly longer in patients who got CR after initial treatment than in those without CR (not reached vs. 15.0 months, P=0.030). In non-gastric lymphoma group, IPI score was an independent prognostic variable of overall survival (P=0.023).
Conclusions: Mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma should be considered as a kind of disseminated indolent lymphoma. The patients with non-gastric lymphoma are likely to have nodal involvement. Patients with poor prognostic factors should be treated more aggressively.