Primary gastrointestinal lymphomas in children: An experience of 12 years from a tertiary care center of North India.

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Lymphomas are among the dominant solid tumors in children and primary gastrointestinal lymphomas (PGILs), although rare, are the most common extranodal lymphomas and the most common malignancies affecting the gastrointestinal tract in children. This study was undertaken to analyze childhood PGIL with reference to clinical presentation, anatomic distribution, histopathologic, and immunohistochemical (IHC) characteristics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this 12 year combined retrospective and prospective descriptive study, all the cases of PGIL in children were selected according to Dawson's criteria.

RESULTS

A total of 11 cases were found which included 9 boys and 2 girls (male:female - 4.5:1) ranging in age from 1 to 14 years (mean 6.6 years). Abdominal pain (81.8%) and intestinal obstruction (63.6%) were the most common presenting features. Grossly, most of the lesions were ulcero-infiltrative (72.7%) and involved the terminal part of the ileum (36.4%) and ileocecal region (27.3%) most commonly. Histopathologically and IHC, all the cases were high-grade lymphomas of diffuse large B-cell type except for one case of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. No case of Burkitt's lymphoma was found.

CONCLUSION

PGILs are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in children worldwide with considerable variation in their clinicopathological features and treatment modalities. Only some studies are available in literature for comparison. Further studies are required to define the genetic and molecular basis of the different histopathological pattern found in our setting.