Treatment outcome and survival rate of primary cutaneous lymphomas

Kim, Jin Seok; Hahn, Jee Sook; Kang, Tae Soo; Jang, Joon Ho; Min, Yoo Hong; Ko, Yun Woong; Suh, Chang Ok; Lee, Min Geol

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Primary cutaneous lymphomas are very rare type of malignant lymphomas. They represent a heterogeneous group of T-cell and B-cell lymphomas with considerable variations in clinical presentation, histopathology, immunophenotype, and prognosis. In this report, we evaluated the clinical characteristics of primary cutaneous lymphoma according to their clinical stages and histopathologic types.
METHODS
From January, 1985 to Jun, 1999, 23 patients with histopathologic diagnosis of primary cutaneous lymphoma were evaluated retrospectively.
RESULTS
The mean age was 48.5 years at the time of diagnosis of primary cutaneous lymphomas, and the most frequent form of cutaneous involvement was nodule(35%). The average duration from the occurrence of cutaneous lesion to the diagnosis of primary cutaneous lymphoma was 29.8 months. There were 20 cases(87%) of primary cutaneous T cell lymphomas, whereas primary cutaneous B cell lymphomas were seen in 3 cases(13%). The patients with stage I were 9 cases(39%), whereas the patients with stage IV were 10 cases(43%). Complete remission rate was 29% and partial remission rate was 57%. Median disease-free survival duration was 7 months and median overall survival duration was 33 months. One-year overall survival rate was 63.3% and 3-year overall survival rate was 56.3%.
CONCLUSION
Primary cutaneous lymphomas were usually diagnosed at a far-advanced stage, and showed poor treatment results. Therefore early diagnosis is important to improve the survival rate. There should be carefully follow-up and repeated tissue diagnosis of the skin lesions which had a suspicion of primary cutaneous lymphoma and had not responded to conservative treatment.