Thirty-six children with malignant lymphomas, including 30 non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) and 6 Hodgkin's disease (HD), and 8 children with histiocytic medullary reticulosis (HMR) were treated over the past 9 years between July 1974 and June 1983. Thirty-three cases were males and 11 females.
In NHL, 8 cases had their primaries in the abdomen, 8 in peripheral lymph nodes, 6 in the mediastinum and 6 in other sites. Three children were in stage I, 4 stage II, 16 stage III and 7 stage IV, according to the Murphy's staging system. Twenty-four NHL cases of 30 were classified histologically by LSG classification, showing that all were diffuse lymphomas with 5 medium seized, 8 mixed cell, 10 lymphoblastic and one Burkitt type.
In HD, 4 children had their primaries in peripheral nodes and 2 in the mediastinum. Two children were in stage IIA, 1 stage IIB and 3 stage IIIB according to Ann Arbor's classification.
Eight cases of HMR demonstrated high fever, active proliferation of atypical histiomonocytes with erythrophgocytosis in bone marrow and, except one, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy.
Most cases of NHL and HMR were treated with pulse administration of multi-agents chemotherapy (ACOP etc), and those cases with HD were treated with COPP.
Therapeutic results demonstrate that, only 11 of 30 NHL have kept continuous complete remissin (CCR) and 7 of these 11 children have been alive off therapy from 38 to 109 months. All 6 children with HD were alive and well during the period ranged from 8 to 96 months. Five of 8 HMR have had CCR currently during the period ranged from 10 to 35 months' follow-up.
