Bone marrow infiltration and patterns in previously diagnosed patients of non hodgkin lymphoma (a single centre study)

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of bone marrow infiltration along with various histological patterns of bone marrow infiltration in previously diagnosed patients of Non Hodgkin Lymphoma. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Haematology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology Rawalpindi. Six months, from Nov 2013 to May 2014. Material and Methods: This study involved 70 patients diagnosed of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Results: The mean age of the patients was 51.40 +- 16.50 years and 78.6% of the patients were males and 21.4% were females. Diffuse Large B-Cell lymphoma was the most frequently observed variant (DLBCL, 60%), followed by Follicular (22.9%) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL, 14.3%). Most of the patients were suffering from Stage-IV disease (51.4%), followed by Stage-III (25.7%) and Stage-II disease (22.9%). Bone marrow infiltration was observed in 51.4% patients. The most common pattern of infiltration was recorded as diffuse, observed in 33.3% of patients. The second most common pattern was interstitial which was recorded in 25% cases followed by mix (22.2%) and focal (16.7%) patterns. The frequency of bone marrow infiltration was unaffected by age (p=0.497), gender (p=0.868) and type of the disease (p=0.486). Conclusion: The most common pattern of diffuse large B-cell Non Hodgkin lymphoma infiltration was bone marrow followed by interstitial tissue. (author)