Role of Postoperative Radiation Therapy in the Management of Early Stage Primary Gastric Non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas: A Retrospective Analysis

Abstract

Background Clinical approaches to early primary gastric non-Hodgkin's lymphomas have not yet been clearly defined, and the role of postoperative radiotherapy remains a matter of discussion. Methods Twenty-seven patients with early primary gastric non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were observed from December 1978 to December 1990 at our Institution. They were staged according to Musshoff and Schmidt-Volmer (19) as I E (n = 16), II E 1 (n = 7) and II E 2 (n = 4). All of them underwent local combined treatment, consisting of surgery and postoperative radiotherapy; chemotherapy was also administered to 10 patients, mainly with the CHOP regimen, for 4-6 cycles before radiotherapy. Irradiation was delivered using 10 MV photons from a linear accelerator. Large abdominal fields were employed in 21 cases with daily fractions of 1.5-2 Gy up to a median total dose of 30 Gy (range: 27-36 Gy). Six patients were irradiated only on the surgical bed up to 40.5 Gy (range: 39-40.5 Gy). Results The 5-year overall and disease-free survivals were respectively 92.4% and 89.8%. The main known prognostic indicators, stage of disease, type of surgery as well as age and sex, were not found to be statistically significant in our series. No clear difference emerged between patients sequentially treated with the combination surgery-chemotherapy-radiotherapy and those who did not receive adjuvant chemotherapy. Two patients recurred at distant sites, but no local failure was seen during the follow-up. Conclusions Although no firm conclusion can be drawn, our experience, in agreement with recent published reports, points out that the use of postoperative radiotherapy is associated not only to favorable results in terms of local control and survival, but also, and moreover, to a negligible incidence of side effects and sequelae. However, in the absence of multi-institutional prospective randomized studies, whose activation is nowadays strongly warranted, the exact role of adjuvant therapies remains a matter of discussion, and the optimal treatment of early primary gastric non-Hodgkin's lymphoma still depends on individual experience and the physician's philosophy.