Abstract:
Objective:This study was done to assess characteristics and curative effects seen in patients with primary testicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (PTL) in a single clinic. Methods:Clinical data of the 26PTL patients admitted to our hospital during the period from January 2001to December 2008were reviewed, including the age, location, Ann-Arbor stag -ing, B-symptoms, serum levels of lactate dehydrogenase, serum levels of β 2-microglobulin, and International Prognostic In -dex (IPI). Treatment methods were included as well. The status of the patients was obtained through telephone calls and statistical analysis of the survival curve and therapeutic effect was conducted using software. Follow-up continued until De-cember 31, 2009. Results: Median survival time of the patients was38months. Complete remission (CR) occurred in 16of the cases, partial remission (PR) occurred in 3 cases, and stable disease (SD) occurred in2 cases. Four of the cases expe-rienced progression of disease (PD) during the treatment. In the 16cases with CR, median survival time was 61months, the 1-, 2- and 5-year overall survival (OS) rates were 88%,73% and 62%, and the 1-, 2- and 5-year progression-free surviv -al (PFS) rates were 85%,58% and 35%, respectively. The prognosis was obviously better in the patients with moderately low IPI than in those with high IPI. The median survival time was 48months in the patients with low IPI (95% CI:34- 62), but was only 14months in the patients with high IPI (95%CI:11-17). The 1-year OS and PFS rates were both 100 % in the patients with postoperative chemotherapy and were67% and 33%, respectively, in those patients treated with local irradia-tion (scrotal radiotherapy) alone. The 5-year OS was 50% in the patients treated with rituximab-based combined chemother-apy, but was 30% in those undergoing chemotherapy without rituximab (P=0.335 ). Conclusion:The curative effect seen in the patients with moderately low IPI is better compared to those with high IPI. Patients that receive early postoperative chemotherapy experience a better therapeutic effect. However, the curative effect of simple local irradiation alone is poor. Surgery plus rituximab-based chemotherapy improves the OS rate.