Analysis of 142 Northern Chinese Patients With Peripheral T/NK-Cell Lymphomas: Subtype Distribution, Clinicopathologic Features, and Prognosis

Peripheral T- and natural killer (NK)-cell lymphomas (PTNKLs) are a heterogeneous group of lymphoid malignancies. We reclassified 142 cases and investigated their clinicopathologic features and outcome. Results showed that the most prevalent subtypes were extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type (eNK/T) (38.0%); angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (16.9%); and peripheral T-cell lymphoma, not otherwise specified (16.2%). Follow-up was available in 124 patients whose overall survival ranged from 3 days to 134 months, with a median of 11 months. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that thrombocytopenia (P = .001), elevated lactate dehydrogenase (P = .007), high Ki-67 index (P = .002), and T-bet expression in more than 20% of cells (P = .036) were independent factors for all cases-among which only the factor of T-bet indicated good outcome-and that thrombocytopenia (P = .011) and radiotherapy (P = .026) were significant for the eNK/T group. Thus, eNK/T was the commonest subtype in this series. The significance of T-bet in predicting outcome should be further confirmed.