Cutaneous Lymphomas-Epidemiological and Clinicopathological Profile: A retrospective Study

Abstract

Lymphomas are classified as either Hodgkin’s or non-Hodgkin’s. The two subtypes of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
that can present primarily in the skin are cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) and cutaneous B-cell lymphoma
(CBCL), both of which tend to be low-grade malignant neoplasms. Although primary cutaneous lymphomas
(PCL) are the second most common group of extra-nodal non-Hodgkin lymphomas, few epidemiological data are
available in the literature and till date. No data about the epidemiology of cutaneous lymphomas in Libya have
been reported. Therefore this study was conducted to investigate the epidemiological and clinicopathological
features of PCL diagnosed in the department of Dermatology -Tripoli Central Hospital.
Data were collected from the lymphoma clinic registry. A total of 54 cases of (CTCL) were diagnosed between
the years 2008 and 2013 (including cases of parapsoriasis), No CBCL case has been diagnosed. There were 26
males and 28 females aged between 18 to 74 with a mean age of 40 ± 13. The most common skin type was type
IV (79.6%). 59.3% of the patients were resident in Tripoli, classical mycosis fungoides was the most common
disease diagnosed (83.2%), and the duration of disease prior to diagnosis varied between 2 months and 7 years.
The most frequent presenting symptom was pruritus (61.1%).
The various clinical presentations recorded in these patients were infiltrated papules and plaques in 31 (57.4%),
hypopigmented patches in 11(20.4%), lymphomatoid papulosis 4(7.4%), and 1(1.9%) case each of sezary
syndrome, erythroderma and ichthyosiform presentation. In 24 (44.4%) patient the lesions were distributed all
over the body. In 46 patients (85.2%) the diagnosis was confirmed histologicaly and most of the patients with
mycosis fungoides (MF) were in stage Ib (71.1%).
Our study showed that from the PCL, MF variant of CTCL is the most common; CBCL was not recorded in our
patients in the given period. More data collection from multi centers is needed to describe the epidemiologic
characteristics in Libya.