A clinical study on malignant lymphomas arising in the oral region

Abstract

We examined the clinical characteristics of 18 cases of malignant lymphomas arising in the oral region which were diagnosed at our department during the 11 years from 2008 to 2018. The patients consisted of 10 males and 8 females whose mean age was 70.2 years. The primary site was the upper gingiva in 10 cases （55.6％）, and the initial symptoms were tumor mass and swelling in 15 cases （83.3％）. Only 7 cases （38.9％） were clinically diagnosed as malignant lymphoma at first visit, but the other 11 cases were difficult to diagnose correctly. The various clinical symptoms such as mass formation and ulcer made differential diagnosis difficult, and a definitive diagnosis could not be obtained by only a single biopsy. Therefore, we examined whether blood test results might be used as an indicator of the diagnosis or not. Our results showed that LDH in 8 of 17 cases （47.1％） and sIL-2R in 11 of 16 cases （68.8％） were high values. Furthermore, we examined whether lymphocyte-monocyte ratio （LMR） helped the diagnosis or not. Thirteen of 17 cases （76.5％） showed a low value of LMR. There was a significant difference in LMR compared to non-malignant lymphoma patients. LMR in the blood tests was also considered to be a useful marker for the diagnosis.