A retrospective review was performed on 20 cases of primary colorectal lymphoma treated at the Medical Center of Korea University during the 11-year period from 1984 to 1994.
The mean age was 46.7 and the male to female ratio was 3:1. Primary involvement of ileocecal area was most common, followed by appendix in 2, rectum in 2 and transverse colon in 1. Abdominal pain and palpable mass were the predominant clinical
features.
Other features were abdominal tenderness, constipation, weight loss, and indigestion. Abdominal ultrasonography, CT and barium enema suggested a malignant condition with the sensitivity of 92, 89 and 90%, but their findings were not specific for
lymphoma. Endoscopic findings suggested a malignant process in 67%. Musshoff criteria of the patients were as follow ; 4 cases (20%) of Stage I, 8 cases (40%) of Stage II-1, 2 cases (10%) of Stage II-2 and 6 cases (30%) of Stage IV. The mean
tumor
size
was 8.7cm in largest diameter and the most common histologic type was diffuse large cell in Working formula. 15 patients (75%) received a curative resection, 4 received palliative resection and 1 received only colostomy. 17 patients received
postresectional adjuvant therapy; 8 cases of chemotherapy, 2 cases of radiotherapy and 7 cases of combinaltion of two. Three patients developed mechanical obstruction after resection. The overall 5-year survival rate was 75.4%. Statistical
analysis
demonstrated a significant influence of curative resection on prognosis by the 5-year survival rate of 84.4% compared with 37.5% with non-curative resection (p<0.05), but age, hostopathologic stage, tumor size and treatment modality were
statistically
not significant based on survival rate.
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