Abstract
Recent epidemiological studies reported changing trend of lymphoid neoplasia in the past few decades. Previous study of lymphomas from East Malaysia from 1981 to 1983 showed a pattern similar to other Asian countries, except for low incidence of peripheral T-cell lymphoma in Sarawak. Current study analyzed materials from 1996 to 1998, with the aim to elucidate possible change in disease pattern, if any, in Sarawak 15 years later. A total of 70 re-confirmed lymphoma cases were classified using WHO proposed list of lymphoid neoplasms. There were 61 (87.1%) non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and 9 (12.9%) Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL), and NHL: HL ratio was 7:1. Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma was the most common subtype of NHL (62.3%). There was only one case of T-NHL, lymphoblastic type in the series. The number of Chinese patients in this series was relatively low. Overall EBV association was 8.2% in NHL (60% in Burkitt's type) and 33.3% in HL. Majority of the extra-nodal lymphoma was from gastrointestinal tract (14/35, 40.0%), of which 10 were from the intestines. In conclusion, current study showed extremely low incidence of T-NHL and low EBV association in both NHL and HL. In addition, intestinal lymphomas constitute a large proportion of extra-nodal cases.
