1Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Medical College, Seoul, Korea. 2Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Medical College, Seoul, Korea.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Peripheral T-cell lymphomas(PTCL) show diverse clinical and histological characteristics and should be understood as mixtures of heterogeneous entities. Although many clinical and biological parameters have been proposed for classifying PTCL into different prognostic groups, few parameters have turned out to be appropriate for classification. To investigate the clinical significance of FUO presentation in PTCL, comparisons of clinical parameters were performed using non-FUO presentation as a control.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: 66 cases of Korean PTCL were divided into FUO group and non-FUO group according to the presentation and compared with each other.
RESULTS: Among 66 patients of PTCL, 19 patients presented with FUO. Compared with non-FUO group, FUO group showed no significant age and sex ratio differences. FUO group showed more advanced stage, worse performance status than non-FUO group. Predominant sites of definite diagnosis were skin, gastrointestinal tract and liver in FUO group and nasal cavity and paranasal sinus in non-FUO group. There were no significant differences between histologic classifications of both groups. Survival analysis revealed significant differences between both groups. FUO group showed significantly shorter survival. Prognostic factor analysis(multivariate) was done with stage, LDH level, performance status, and FUO status. FUO status, stage and performance status were significant determinants of survival, but LDH level proved to have no prognostic implication.
CONCLUSION: PTCL with FUO presentation showed such distinct characteristics that the authors propose fever of unknown origin(FUO) as a clinical parameter for classifying PTCL.
Further studies are needed to identify biological parameters which characterize PTCL with FUO presentation.
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