non hodgkin's lymphoma survival rate | Patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma have shown improved perspectives in the last decade

Patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma have shown improved perspectives in the last decade



Since the years 1990, the survival rates of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) patients appear to have increased, according to a report published in the March 10 issue of the internal Medicine archive, one of the JAMA/Archives newspapers.

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a set of cancers different from lymphocytes in the immune system and they can affect any of the organs related to the lymphatic system. Although it is often associated with HIV infection, many of its causes have eluded scientists. This affects about 20 out of 100 000 individuals, and the results of progression are varied but rarely optimistic. Treatment of this condition has developed dramatically in recent years due to the development of new monoclonal antibody therapies in relation to HIV-related lymphomas.

To assess the success of these new therapies in the NHL population, Dianne Pulte, M.D., of the German Cancer research Centre, Heidelberg, and colleagues reviewed data from the monitoring, Epidemiology and Results program (SEER) of the National Cancer Institute of the United States. On the basis of two-year intervals between 1990 and 2004, survival rates were calculated: in which patients were diagnosed with an NHL, by age group (five groups between 15 and 75 years of age or older), sex, race , the location of the tumor (i.e., cancer in a lymph node or a place other than a lymph node) and the Histological subtype (high-quality or low-grade tumors).

The authors write with positive results for NHL-related patients with five-and ten-year survival rates. Overall, five-year survival increased from 50.4% to 66.8%, and 10-year survival increased from 39.4% to 56.3% between 1990 and 1992 and 2002 to 2004.  "They continue:" Improvements were more pronounced in patients under 45 years (plus 26.8 and over 27.1 percentage points for survival of five and 10 years, respectively), but improvements were observed in all age groups, in Both sexes, both nodal and hypernodal diseases and in low-grade and high-quality illnesses. Prognosis improvements were less in black patients than in white patients, especially in black young.

The authors attribute these improvements to two potential sources: the first is the therapeutic advancement of the NFL itself.  "One of the advances in therapy that occurred between 1990 and 2004, in particular the introduction of antibody treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma," they write. Treatment with antibody therapy and chemotherapy has extended life expectancy in many cases, but if and how often this extension represents a true remedy is still unknown. The second reason they attribute to progress in the treatment of HIV-has reduced the appearance of non-Hodgkin lymphomas linked to HIV and has also made them easier to treat.

Our estimates of long-term survival in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma obtained using the analysis method for the period 2002 to 2004 are much higher than the previously available survival estimates, which concern Mainly patients diagnosed in the years 1990, "the authors say" the timely disclosure of improvements in survival in patients, clinicians, researchers and the public is essential. "