Primary gastrointestinal lymphoma

Background: extranodal lymphoma may arise anywhere outside lymph nodes mostly in the gastrointestinal (gi) tract as non- hodgkin's disease. we reviewed the clinicopathological features and treatment results of patients with primary gi lymphoma. mate- rials and methods: a total number of 30 cases with primary gi lymphoma were included in this study. patients referred to the radiation oncology department of omid hospital (mashhad, iran) during a 5-year period (2006-11). clinical, paraclinical, and radio- logical data was collected from medical records of the patients. results: out of the 30 patients with primary gi lymphoma in the study, 12 were female (40%) and 18 were male (60%) (male to female ratio: 3/2). b symptoms were present in 27 patients (90%). antidiuretic hormone (ldh) levels were elevated in 9 patients (32.1%). the most common primary site was stomach in 14 cases (46.7%). other common sites included small intestine and colon each in 8 patients (26.7%). all patients had histopathologically proven non-hodgkin's lymphoma. the most common histologic subtype was diffuse large b-cell lymphoma (dlbl) in 16 patients (53.3%). in addition, 28 patients (93.3%) received chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, prednisolone (chop regimen). the median course of chemotherapy was 6 cources. moreover, 8 patients (26.7%) received radiotherapy with cobalt 60. the median follow-up time was 26 months. the overall 5-year survival rate was 53% and the median survival time was 60 months. conclusion: primary gi lymphoma is commonly seen in stomach and small intestine and mostly is dlbcl or mucosaassociated lymphoid tissue (malt) lymphoma.