Background : Primary cutaneous lymphomas are very rare type of malignant lymphomas . They represent a heterogeneous group of T - cell and B- cell lymphomas with cons iderable variations in clinical presentation, histopathology, immunophenotype, and prognos is . In this report, we evaluated the clinical characteristics of primary cutaneous lymphoma according to their clinical stages and histopathologic types .
Methods : From January, 1985 to Jun, 1999, 23 patients with histopathologic diagnosis of primary cutaneous lymphoma were evaluated retrospectively.
Results : The mean age was 48.5 years at the time of diagnos is of primary cutaneous lymphomas, and the most frequent form of cutaneous involvement was nodule(35%). T he average duration from the occurrence of cutaneous lesion to the diagnosis of primary cutaneous lymphoma was 29.8 months. There were 20 cases(87%) of primary cutaneous T cell lymphomas, whereas primary cutaneous B cell lymphomas were seen in 3 cases (13%). The patients with stage I were 9 cases (39%), whereas the patients with s tage IV were 10 cases(43%). Complete remiss ion rate was 29% and partial remiss ion rate was 57%. Median disease- free survival duration was 7 months and median overall survival duration was 33 months . One- year overall survival rate was 63.3% and 3- year overall survival rate was 56.3%.
Conclusion : Primary cutaneous lymphomas were usually diagnosed at a far- advanced stage, and showed poor treatment results. Therefore early diagnosis is important to improve the survival rate. There should be carefully follow- up and repeated tis sue diagnos is of the s kin les ions which had a suspicion of primary cutaneous lymphoma and had not responded to conservative treatment.(Korean J Med 59:47- 58, 2000)