BACKGROUNDA survey of early stage follicular lymphoma(FL) revealed that the rigorously staged FL patients at first diagnosis had a better outcome as compared with non-rigorous staged FL patients, but there were no similar reports in China.

OBJECTIVETo explore the relationship between the rigorous staging at first diagnosis and the prognosis of FL patients at different stages.

METHODSThe clinical data of 111 patients with newly diagnosed FL from 2008 to 2014 year were collected and analyzed. The rigorous staging included: (1) bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, (2) imaging examination of whole body including CT and ultrasounic scan, or PET/CT, either or both is defined as rigorous staging, or else as non-rigorous staging.

RESULTSThe FL patients at I-II stages by rigorous staging showed a superior progression-free survival(PFS) compared with non-rigorous staging patients(P=0.048). For all the patients, the age, serum LDH, bone marrow lesion and more than 3 foci of diameter larger than 3 cm correlated with prognosis in univariate analysis, and multivariate analysis revealed that the age, serum LDH and bone marrow imolvement were the independent prognostic factors.

CONCLUSIONRigorous staging leads to better outcomes, suggesting that accurate and appropriate testing is important for the patients at the first treatment. The close correlation of bone marrow with prognosis indicates that the evaluation of bone marrow is very important for the daily clinical practice.