Advances in non-Hodgkin lymphoma survival are accelerating

March 14, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Long-term survival among patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) has improved substantially since the 1990s, epidemiologists in Germany report in the Archives of Internal Medicine for March 10.

Dr. Dianne Pulte and associates at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg used period analysis of data from the US Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program to estimate trends in relative survival in 86,000 patients 15 years and older diagnosed with NHL between 1990 and 2004.

"Prognosis for patients with NHL improved strongly and significantly between 1990-1992 and 2002-2004, both overall and for every age group, for patients with nodal or extranodal disease, for patients with low- or high-grade disease, for both sexes, and for both racial groups studied," Dr. Pulte's team reports.

Overall, 5-year relative survival increased from 50.4% to 66.8%, and 10-year relative survival increased from 39.4% to 56.3%. The greatest gains were observed in patients age 15 to 44, for whom 5- and 10-year survival rose by 27 percentage points.

Furthermore, "the tremendous gender gap among younger patients was reduced over time owing to very strong improvements in relative survival among men."

The magnitude of improvement was less in black patients and in patients over the age of 75, the authors note, and the racial gap has increased over time among younger patients.

The investigators attribute the overall improvement in outlook for patients with NHL to changes in treatment and a decrease in the proportion of HIV-related cases.

"Further progress is likely to have occurred since 2004, which cannot be reflected in our survival figures," Dr. Pulte and her associates comment, "and further improvements in survival may occur as new therapeutic options become available."