Head and Neck Lymphomas: A Clinico- Pathologic Assesment of a Single Centre Study

Abstract

Lymphoma ranks as the third most common cancer globally, comprising approximately 3% of all malignant tumors and 15% of childhood malignancy1–3. Lymphoma is said to be the most prevalent non-epithelial cancer in the head and neck region, following squamous cell carcinoma, leukemia, and brain tumors. 1,2,4 The occurrence of lymphoma varies significantly depending on factors such as histological subtype, age, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status2,4.
The aim of this study was to retrospectively investigate the sites of occurrence and various histologic types of lymphomas in the head and neck area, and to analyze the relationship between these and the age, sex, gender and the duration of the lesions in patients who presented at our center.
Method: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study, utilizing socio-demographic information such as age, sex, gender of clinically documented cases recorded during the designated study period, as well as their clinico-pathologic characteristics. Differences in proportions across age groups, tumor sites, and lesion categories, was assessed using chi-square test, supplemented by Fisher’s exact test where appropriate. Statistical significance was determined at a threshold of p < 0.05.
Results: The mean age distribution in years, is 43.88 + 18.57 and the mean duration of lesion in weeks, is 67.72 + 151.74 Females had a slight predominance in the study (53.7%) compared to the males (46.7%) with M: F of 1: 0.9. There is a broad age distribution, slightly skewed towards middle-aged participants.
Majority of the lymphoma cases (81.7%) are in cervical lymph nodes accounting for 98.51% of head and neck nodal lesions. The remaining 18.3% were found in extra-nodal sites, most of which were found in the oral cavity (66.67%). Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma made up 95.2% of all the Head and Neck Lymphomas. Of these, diffuse lymphocytic lymphoma was the most prevalent histologic type (75.6%). Of the cases that had Immunochemistry records, 83.3% of the histologic types of NHL were of B cell origin. Hodgkin’s Lymphoma accounted for 4.8% cases of the study.
There is no statistically significant relationship between sex and the type of lymphoma p=0.33. There was no statistically significant association between Sex, the type of lymphoma, the site of the lymphoma and the duration of lesions p= 0.29
Conclusion: Head and Neck Lymphoma is of almost equal gender predilection, slightly more predominant in females and typically affect middle-aged individuals. HL is rare, less common in this study and NHL is more predominant. Of all NHL, Small lymphocytic B cell lymphomas (SLL) is more prevalent in the study. There is no significant relationship between, gender, duration of lesion and the site or type of lymphoma in the head and neck.