Department of Pathology and Cytology, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia.
Department of Pathology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Br J Haematol. 2015 Nov;171(3):366-72. doi: 10.1111/bjh.13586. Epub 2015 Jul 27.
The distribution of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) subtypes varies around the world, but a systematic study of South-eastern Europe (SEEU) has never been done. Therefore, we evaluated the relative frequencies of NHL subtypes in three SEEU countries--Croatia, Romania and Macedonia. Five expert haematopathologists reviewed 632 consecutive cases of newly diagnosed NHL from the three SEEU countries using the World Health Organization classification. The results were compared to 399 cases from North America (NA) and 580 cases from Western Europe (WEU). The proportions of B- and T-cell NHL and the sex distribution in SEEU were similar to WEU and NA. However, the median ages of patients with low- and high-grade B-NHL in SEEU (60 and 59 years, respectively) were significantly lower than in NA (64 and 68 years, respectively; P < 0·05). SEEU had a significantly lower proportion of low-grade B-NHL (46·6%) and higher proportion of high-grade B-NHL (44·5%) compared to both WEU (54·5% and 36·4%, respectively) and NA (56·1% and 34·3%, respectively). There were no significant differences in the relative frequencies of T-NHL subtypes. This study provides new insights into differences in the relative frequencies of NHL subtypes in different geographic regions. Epidemiological studies are needed to better characterize and explain these differences.
世界各地非霍奇金淋巴瘤（NHL）亚型的分布情况有所不同，但针对东南欧（SEEU）地区尚未进行过系统研究。因此，我们评估了克罗地亚、罗马尼亚和马其顿这三个 SEEU 国家 NHL 亚型的相对频率。五位血液病理学家专家采用世界卫生组织分类法，对来自三个 SEEU 国家的 632 例新诊断 NHL 连续病例进行了评估。结果与北美（NA）的 399 例和西欧（WEU）的 580 例进行了比较。B 细胞和 T 细胞 NHL 的比例以及 SEEU 的性别分布与 WEU 和 NA 相似。然而，SEEU 低级别和高级别 B-NHL 患者的中位年龄（分别为 60 岁和 59 岁）明显低于 NA（分别为 64 岁和 68 岁；P<0.05）。与 WEU（分别为 54.5%和 36.4%）和 NA（分别为 56.1%和 34.3%）相比，SEEU 的低级别 B-NHL 比例（46.6%）明显较低，而高级别 B-NHL 比例（44.5%）较高。T-NHL 亚型的相对频率没有显著差异。本研究为不同地理区域 NHL 亚型相对频率的差异提供了新的见解。需要开展流行病学研究，以更好地描述和解释这些差异。
