The clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of 410 patients with natural killer/T-cell lymphoma

Purpose To investigate the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (NKTCL). Methods We retrospectively reviewed 410 NKTCL patients admitted to our lymphoma center from 2000 to 2019. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were estimated with the Kaplan–Meier method, and the differences between the study groups were compared by the log-rank test. Results The median age of the 410 patients was 44 (range 8–84), and the 5-year OS and PFS were 61.2% and 38.4%, respectively. For patients with stage I/II, the 5-year PFS rate was 57.5%, and the 5-year OS rate was 77.2%. For patients with stage III/IV, the 5-year PFS rate was 17.4%, and the 5-year OS rate was 43.7%. Compared to the patients who received radiotherapy alone or chemotherapy alone as their initial treatment, the patients who received combined chemoradiotherapy had longer PFS ( P = 0.013). Independent prognostic factors for OS were stage III/IV ( P = 0.001), elevated IPI/aaIPI score ( P = 0.019), elevated PINK score ( P < 0.001) and elevated plasma EBV-DNA ( P = 0.003). An elevated PINK score ( P < 0.001) was an independent prognostic factor for PFS. Conclusion Stage III/IV, elevated IPI/aaIPI score, elevated PINK score and elevated plasma EBV-DNA were independent prognostic factors for OS. Elevated PINK score was an independent prognostic factor for PFS. In stage III/IV patients, the patients who received combined chemoradiotherapy had significantly longer PFS.