[Prognostic significance of histobiopsy findings in bone marrow of malignant lymphomas in adults].

Issuing from the fact that the histobiopsy of the bone marrow is the most sufficient method for the proof of infiltrates of malignant lymphomas in the marrow, in 41 patients with Hodgkin's disease and 89 patients with malignant non-Hodgkin-lymphomas was tested whether already may be rendered prognostic conclusions from the histologic findings of the marrow. In these cases could be shown by the different course in patients with Hodgkin's disease in stage IV with and without affection of the marrow that a specific infiltration of the marrow is accompanied by a significant deterioration of the prognosis, which should be taken into consideration in the therapy planning. In the malignant non-Hodgkin-lymphomas those with a high degree of malignity showed a significantly worse prognosis than those with a low degree of malignity. Thus in the individual case the coordination of a lymphoma to one of these groups of malignity which is possible at the histobiopsy of the iliac crest may already be of prognostic significance also without consideration of the type of lymphoma. The prognostic significance of the type of lymphoma itself could be confirmed by the different course of the survival curves in the histologic subtypes of the immunocytoma. Since finally patients with a lymphoplasmocytic immunocytoma in diffuse affection of the marrow show a significantly worse prognosis than in the focal affection may be concluded that apart from the degree of malignity and the type of lymphoma also the type of affection of the marrow which is to be established histologically seems to have a decisive prognostic significance from which the necessity of a different therapeutic approach may be derived. Further examinations on larger numbers of patients including multivariant analyses will yield still more evident results.