Spectrum of malignant lymphomas in Klang Hospital, a public hospital in Malaysia.

BACKGROUND Lymphoma is a relatively common group of neoplasms diagnosed in hospital practice. This study aims to elucidate the pattern of this disease encountered in a public service hospital of the Ministry of Health, Malaysia. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 98 biopsies from 92 patients were retrieved from the archives of Klang General Hospital, from January 1993 to June 1999. The histopathology of these biopsies were reviewed by two pathologists, and confirmed cases were sub-classified according to the WHO proposed scheme. Immunohistochemical staining with a panel of lymphoid antibodies was performed in aid of sub-typing. All cases were screened for Epstein-Barr virus association by in-situ hybridisation technique. RESULTS 15 biopsies were excluded from further analysis due to inadequate material for further study or diagnosed as non-lymphoma. The remaining 83 biopsies were from 80 patients. 52 were males and 28 females. The male: female ratio was 1.9:1. There were 64 Malays, 4 Chinese and 12 Indians. The ages of patients ranged from 3 to 86 years with a mean age of 50.5 years. 73.8% of the diagnostic materials were nodal tissue. Fourteen patients had Hodgkin's lymphomas (HL), 6 being mixed-cellularity, 4 nodular-sclerosis, 1 lymphocyte-rich, 2 lymphocyte-depleted, 1 lymphocyte-predominant, and 66 had non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL). The HL: NHL ratio was 1:4.7. Of the 66 cases of NHL, 9 (13.6%) were T- and 57 (86.4%) B-cell types. The most common NHL encountered was diffuse large B-cell type. Follicular-lymphoma constituted 16.7% of these NHL. 77.8% of T-NHL and 10.5% of B-NHL was EBV associated. Double staining of EBER with CD20 and EBER with CD3 in the T-NHL cases showed that in a majority of the cases, EBER-positive large cells did not express the T- or B- cell antigen. CONCLUSION There is a relatively small proportion of T-cell lymphoma in this series of Asian patients. The reason is thought to be the lower utilisation rate of this hospital service by ethnic Chinese, as reflected by the hospital admission data.