Prognoses of Acute, Lymphoma ATL Subtypes Still Unsatisfactory

A follow-up to a 1991 report in a Japanese population published in Blood has found that prognoses of patients with adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) are still unsatisfactory despite recent progress in treatment modalities.¹

However, there is a marked improvement in 4-year overall survival compared to previous findings.

Researchers led by Hiroo Katsuya, MD, of Fukuoka University in Japan, retrospectively collected clinical data from patients diagnosed with ATL between 2000 and 2009 across 84 institutions in Japan.

In total, 895, 355, 187, and 157 patients with acute, lymphoma, chronic, and smoldering subtypes of ATL were identified, respectively.

Median survival times were found to be 8.3, 10.6, 31.5 and 55.0 months for acute, lymphoma, chronic, and smoldering subtypes, respectively. Four-year overall survival rates were found to be 11%, 16%, 36% and 52% for acute, lymphoma, chronic, and smoldering subtypes, respectively.

Among the 227 patients who had undergone allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), median survival time was 5.9 months and 4-year overall survival was 26%.

Of note, intensive combination chemotherapy and allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) have been introduced since the previous Japanese nationwide survey performed in the late 1980s. And 25% of patients who could undergo transplantation experienced long survival. Researchers found that the prognosis of the smoldering type was worse than it has been expected.

Reference

1. Katsuya H, Ishitsuka K, Utsunomiya A, et al. Treatment and survival among 1594 patients with ATL diagnosed in the 2000s: a report from the ATL-PI project performed in Japan. [published online ahead of print September 11, 2015]. Blood. doi: 10.1182/blood-2015-03-632489.