Other Tumours in Primary Cutaneous Lymphomas.

Patients with primary cutaneous lymphomas (PCLs) are treated with multiple therapeutic regimens, which may increase the risk of subsequent solid and haematological neoplasms. The aim of our study was to assess the incidence of other malignancies in our series of PCLs. From March 1994 to January 2007, 272 patients with PCLs (179 M, 93 F, median age 65 yr, range 14–88) were referred to our center for staging, treatment and follow-up. The clinical charts were reviewed to detect the incidence of malignancies occurred before or after the diagnosis of PCL or concomitantly. The series was composed by 228 patients (150 M, 78 F, median age 66 yrs) with T-cell lymphomas (202 Mycosis Fungoides/MF, 10 Sézary Syndrome/SS, 9 CD30+ PCL, 7 non MF/non CD30+ T cell PCL); 43 patients (28 M, 15 F, median age 60 yrs) with B-cell lymphomas (25 Follicular/FL, 14 marginal/MZL, 3 Leg-type, 1 Lymphoblastic) and one patient with CD4+/CD56+ hematodermic neoplasm. Chemotherapy was administered to 48 patients. During follow-up 12 patients died for the disease and 24 for other causes. A second tumor was observed in 41 patients (15%): 6 of them experienced more than one neoplasms: overall we observed 48 malignancies, 38 solid and 10 haematological. The other neoplasms appeared similarly before (20) and after (21) the diagnosis of PCL; in 7 cases they were diagnosed simultaneously. Solid tumours (17 preceding, 4 concurrent, 17 subsequent) were diagnosed in: skin (11), colon (5), lung (4), breast (3), CNS (3), bladder (2), liver (2), kidney (2), uterus (2), testis (1), prostate (1), stomach (1), thyroid (1). The haematological malignancies (3 preceding, 3 concurrent, 4 subsequent) were: B-cell lymphomas (4), acute myeloid leukemias (3), plasmocytoma (1), T-cell lymphoma (1), Hodgkin’s lymphoma (1). Among the six patients with more than one adjunctive neoplasms one patient had lung and kidney carcinoma preceding PCL; two patients a preceding carcinoma (skin and bladder, respectively) and subsequently a lung carcinoma; other two patients showed both a preceding and a concurrent neoplasm (skin and colon carcinoma, B-cell lymphoma and skin carcinoma, respectively). Finally a patient had a preceding skin carcinoma, a concurrent nodal Hodgkin’s lymphoma and a subsequent nodal B-cell lymphoma. So we have reported 48 other neoplasms in 41 patients within 272 PCLs (15%). The occurrence of the other malignancy was not related to the B/T phenotype of PCLs, as it was observed in 35/228 (15.4%) T-cell lymphomas (32 MF, 2 SS, 1 non MF/non CD30+ T cell lymphoma) and in 6/43 (14%) B-cell lymphomas (3 FL, 3 MZL; χ² test: P=0.88). The interval of occurrence was longer for tumors preceding (median 60 mo.s, range 8–180) than for tumors following PCL (median 45, range 6–122). The administration of chemotherapy for PCL was not associated with an increased incidence of second neoplasm(χ² test, P=0.77). Multicentric studies might help in elucidating the role of genetic and immunitary factors in the pathogenesis of multiple neoplasms in patients with PCLs.