Patients With Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Have Shown Improved Outlook In Last Decade
March 28th, 2008 | by admin |
Since the 1990s, the survival rates for patients with non-Hodgkinlymphoma (NHL) appear to have increased, according to a reportpublished in the March 10 issue of the Archives of InternalMedicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a set of different cancers of the lymphocytesin the immune system, and they can affect any of the organs related tothe lymph system. While it is often associated with HIVinfection, many of its causes have eluded scientists. Itaffects approximately 20 out of every 100,000 individuals, andprogression outcomes are varied but rarely optimistic. Treatment forthis condition has developed enormously in recent years due to thedevelopment of novel monoclonal antibody therapies in relation to HIVrelated lymphomas.
To assess the success of these new therapies in the NHL population,Dianne Pulte, M.D., of theGerman Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, and colleagues examined datafrom the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance,Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program. Based on two year timeintervals between 1990 and 2004, survival rates were calculated: withinwhich patients were diagnosed with NHL, by age group (fivegroups ranging between 15 and 75 or more years old), sex, race, tumorlocation (ie: was the cancer cound in a lymph node or a location otherthan a lymph node) and histological subtype (high grade or low gradetumors).
The authors write with positive results for NHL patients related tofive and ten year survival rates. “Overall,five-year relative survival increased from 50.4 percent to 66.8percent, and 10-year relative survival increased from 39.4 percent to56.3 percent between 1990 to 1992 and 2002 to 2004.” They continue:”Improvements were most pronounced in patients younger than 45 years(plus 26.8 and plus 27.1 percentage points for five- and 10-yearsurvival, respectively), but improvements were seen in all age groups,in both sexes, in both nodal and extranodal disease and in bothlow-grade and high-grade disease. Improvements in prognosis were lessin black patients than in white patients, especially in younger blackpatients.”
The authors attribute these improvements to two potential sources: thefirst is therapeutic advances for NFL itself. “One isadvances in therapy that have occurred between1990 and 2004, particularly the introduction of antibody therapy fornon-Hodgkin lymphoma,” they write. “Treatment with antibody therapy andchemotherapy has extended life expectancy in many cases, but whetherand how often this extension represents a true cure is still unknown.”The second reason they attribute to advances in HIV treatment — thesehave reduced theoccurrence of HIV-related non-Hodgkin lymphomas and also made themeasier to treat.
“Our estimates of long-term survival inpatients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma obtained by the period analysismethod for the 2002 to 2004 period are much higher than previouslyavailable survival estimates, which mostly pertain to patientsdiagnosed in the 1990s,” the authors say. “Timely disclosure ofthe improvements in survival achieved in patients, clinicians,researchers and the public is essential.”
Ongoing Improvement in Outcomes for Patients Diagnosed asHaving Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma From the 1990s to the Early 21st Century
Dianne Pulte, MD; Adam Gondos, PhD; Hermann Brenner, MD, MPH
Arch Intern Med. 2008;168(5):469-476
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Written by Anna Sophia McKenney
Copyright: Medical News Today
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