Abstract
The number of patients with malignant lymphoma localized on the head and neck at our hospital from January 2000 to December 2002 was 49 including 31 cases of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), 8 of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), 5 of follicular lymphoma, 2 of NK/T-cell lymphoma, 2 of Burkitt or Burkitt-like lymphoma and one of MALT lymphoma. Twenty-one (67.7%) patients with DLBCL were treated with CHOP plus involved-field irradiation, and 5 patients with HL were treated with ABVD plus radiotherapy. The range of follow-up was 5 to 51 months (median 28 months). At four years, 46 patients (93.9%) are alive and the estimated rates of progression-free survival of DLBCL and HL were 90.3% and 75%, respectively. The survival curve of the patients with DLBCL reached a plateau one year after the start of treatment. Therefore, the combined modality is regarded as a standard treatment for DLBCL and HL localized on the head and neck. The disease of two dead cases was Burkitt-like lymphoma and NK/T-cell lymphoma, respectively, indicating that our treatment for these high-grade malignant lymphomas is unsatisfactory.
