title: Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the elderly. A study of 602 patients aged 70 or older from a Danish population-based registry. The Danish LYEO-Study Group.
abstract: Within a 7-year period 1,597 newly diagnosed cases of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) were included in a Danish population-based NHL registry. Of these, 602 (38%) were aged 70 years or older (age range 70-94, median: 76.8). They represent the population defined as 'elderly' patients in the present study. The average annual incidence rate for this elderly patient population was 35.7/10(5), as compared with 6.6/10(5) for patients aged less than 70 (overall annual incidence: 9.5/10(5)). Localised cases (stage I and II) and extranodal manifestations were found more frequently among elderly patients. The most common sites of extranodal involvement were the stomach (21% of all extranodal cases) and the bone marrow (16%). Histologically, follicular centroblastic/centrocytic cases were found to be less frequent (p less than 0.01) in elderly patients as compared to their younger counterparts (less than 70 years), who in contrast had a lower occurrence of diffuse centroblastic cases (p less than 0.01). Overall 7-year survival for the elderly patient population was 35% (median 1.7 years), and for patients aged less than 70 it was 57%. This difference persisted after correction for apparently NHL-unrelated deaths (52% vs. 66%, respectively, p less than 0.0001). Elderly patients with poor prognosis were characterised by the following features identified in a Cox-regression model: hepatic involvement, presence of B-symptoms, high-grade histology and elevated s-LDH. The corresponding relative risk values were in the order 2.4, 2.2, 1.9 and 1.6.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Haematology, Odense University Hospital, Denmark.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: d'Amore
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Brincker
authors.forename: B E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thorling
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pedersen
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sandberg
authors.forename: N T
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Pedersen
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sørensen
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008228:Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D011379:Prognosis