Treatment outcome in Egyptian lymphoma patients, 2-year results, single-center experience

Introduction: Lymphoma is considered the most common hematologic malignancy in Egypt and accounts for about 8.4% of all new cancer cases annually; however, the treatment outcome needs to be evaluated and compared with those achieved with the standards used worldwide. Patients and methods A retrospective pilot descriptive study of the outcome of patients with lymphoma treated at the Clinical Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation Units in Ain Shams University Hospitals over 2 years (2008 and 2009) was carried out. The study included 74 patients, 31 of whom were diagnosed with Hodgkin s lymphoma (HL) (group I), 10 with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) (subgroup IIa), and 33 with aggressive NHL (subgroup IIb). Results In this study, NHL was the most common type, found in 58% of the cases, and was more common in older patients; low-grade lymphoma was more common in women and aggressive lymphoma was more common in men. However, HL was found in 42% of cases and was more common in young males. Hepatitis C virus was the most common associated infection; it was detected in 6% of HL and 38% of NHL patients, who were usually in advanced stage disease (80.64% stage III and IV vs. 19.36% stage I and II in HL and 89.19 vs. 10.81% in NHL patients). IPS Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and International Prognostic Index (IPI) non Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) were not predictors for treatment response or subsequent relapse. The best results of chemotherapy were achieved using ABVD with IFRT in patients with HL, FC protocol in low-grade NHL, and CHOP-R in high-grade NHL. An overall higher response rate was found in patients with HL compared with NHL patients. ASCT in relapsed patients at the time of the second complete remission did not lead to a significant improvement in disease-free survival or overall survival. Conclusion Although auto-SCT in NHL in our unit was not statistically significant, but it yielded a good result compared with the international one.