Abstract
Purpose: :
To determine the comparative clinical features and survival in patients with primary versus metastatic intraocular lymphoma in a retrospective series.
Methods: :
The clinical records of patients with confirmed or suspected primary or metastatic intraocular lymphoma evaluated between 1981 and 2007 in the senior author’s (JJA) practice were reviewed. Patients whose diagnosis was not confirmed pathologically or by associated clinical findings were excluded. Relevant patient information was abstracted retrospectively from the patient records. For patients who were still alive at the most recent recorded encounter, the Social Security Death Index was employed to identify those who had died and their dates of death. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were computed for the patients in the subgroups.
Results: :
Thirty-seven patients formed the database for this study. The clinical category of intraocular lymphoma was classified as primary intraocular lymphoma in 32 and metastatic uveal lymphoma (MIL) in 4. The 32 cases of primary intraocular lymphoma were subclassified into primary vitreoretinal lymphoma (PVRL) in 27 and primary uveal lymphoma (PUL) in 5. The age range was similar for all groups; however, most patients in the PVRL subgroup were women (67.9%) while most patients in the PUL subgroup were men (80.0%). The sex distribution was equal in the MIL subgroup. Most patients with PUL (80.0%) had unilateral involvement, while most patients with PVRL (71.4%) and MIL (75.0%) had bilateral involvement. The five-year survival was 80% for the PVRL subgroup, 20% for those in the PUL subgroup, and 0% for those in the MIL subgroup.
Conclusions: :
These results suggest that patients with the three most common clinical forms of intraocular lymphoma have distinct clinical features and vastly different survival outcomes.
Keywords: oncology • tumors • pathology: human