High IL-10 Expression Is Associated with Poor Prognosis in Primary Gastrointestinal Lymphoma

Background：Primary gastrointestinal lymphoma（PGIL）is defined as the primary malignant lymphoma of the gastrointestinal tract. The long-term prognosis and life quality of PGIL patients are influenced due to gastrointestinal complications. Cytokines have a close immunological relationship with lymphocytes, however, the relationship with serum cytokines and PGIL prognosis is still unknown.

Method：We conducted a retrospective analysis of 165 PGIL patients referred to Department of Hematology of Peking university third hospital over a 10-year period between 2012-2022，and serum cytokine detection was performed on 85 patients' peripheral blood. Serum cytokine（IL-2,IL-4,IL-6,IL-9,IL-10,TNF-a）were quantified using flow cytometer. Median follow-up time was 29 months, and 1-year progression-free survival(PFS) of total PGIL patients was 84.1%, and 3-year PFS was 67.9%.The 1-year overall survival（OS）was 90.9%,and 3-year OS was 89.2%.

Results：The median age of PGIL patients was 57-year-old, and 58.8% of them were male. The two most common pathological types were diffuse large B-Cell lymphoma (40.0%) and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue(30.6%).Our results also showed that IL-4 level was higher in surviving PGIL patients, while IL-10 level was higher in deceased PGIL patients. There was no statistically significant difference in other serum cytokines(IL-2,IL-6,IL-9, TNF-a) between surviving and deceased PGIL patients. Survival analysis showed that the OS of patients in the low IL-10 level group was lower than that in the high IL-10 group（P=0.03）

Conclusion：High IL-10 expression is associated with poor prognosis in primary gastrointestinal lymphoma