OBJECTIVETo study the clinical diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of primary gastric lymphoma (PGL).

METHODSClinical data of 200 patients with PGL who were treated at the Tianjin Cancer Hospital were retrospectively reviewed.

RESULTSThere were 110 males and 90 females. The age ranged between 19 and 80 (median, 54) years old. Symptoms or laboratory examinations were not specific. Before the treatment, 130 cases were diagnosed correctly, and the remaining 70 were misdiagnosed as gastric cancer (n=59), gastric ulcer (n=5) and chronic gastritis (n=6). Twenty-four cases received chemotherapy alone, 29 cases surgery alone, 132 cases underwent surgery plus chemotherapy, and 15 were not treated. The 200 cases all received follow-up ranging from 1 to 246 months (median, 26 months). The 1, 3, 5, and 10-year survival rates were 65.0%, 57.5%, 56.2%, and 55.0%. Univariate analysis and multivariate analysis showed that emaciation (P<0.01), tumor location (P<0.01), treatment modality (P<0.01), histological type (P<0.05), and tumor staging (P<0.05) were independent factors of survival in patients with PGL.

CONCLUSIONSThe misdiagnosis of PGL is very frequent. The treatment of choice should be comprehensive therapy based on surgery.