Background: B-cell chronic lymphoproliferative disorders (B-CLPD) comprise several indolent lymphoma subtypes with similar characteristics but also difference and heterogeneity. Several prognostic systems had been established for separate subtypes, such as Rai/Binet stage system for CLL, FLIPI for follicular lymphoma. Here, we want to explore the prognostic role of some common clinical characteristics in each lymphoma subtype, such as serum LDH.

Materials and methods: The clinical data of 829 patients with B-CLPD including clinical features, LDH expression level, cytogenetic abnormalities and therapeutic outcome were analyzed retrospectively in department of lymphoma & myeloma, Institute of hematology & Blood disease hospital from April 1990 to August 2013, and the prognosis of B-CLPD patients with different expression levels of LDH was compared, including overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) rates.

Results: 829 patients were divided into three groups, including 426 (51.4%) patients with chronic lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL), 307 (37.0%) patients with non-CLL B-CLPD and 96 (11.6%) patients with BLPD-U. Elevated serum LDH at diagnosis was detected in 112 (26.3%), 85 (27.7%) and 23 (24.9%) of CLL, non-CLL B-CLPD and BLPD-U group, respectively. Patients with elevated LDH B-CLPD had poorer 5-year overall survival rate (CLL: 63.8% vs 83.0%; non-CLL B-CLPD: 62.2% vs 78.1%; BLPD-U: 47.4% vs 88.6%) and 5-year progression-free survival rate (CLL: 52.0% vs 78.2%; non-CLL B-CLPD: 40.8% vs 75.6%; BLPD-U: 48.9% vs 89.5%) than LDH normal patients. Univariate analysis showed that LDH expression, hemoglobin level, platelet count, B symptoms, P53 deletion were prognostic factors for CLL patient survival, while LDH expression, platelet count, albumin level affected non-CLL B-CLPD patient survival significantly and LDH expression, albumin level, ECOG PS scores for BLPD-U patient survival. Multivariate analysis showed that elevated LDH was an independent significant prognostic factor for overall survival (P<.001) and progression-free survival (P<.001) in all three groups.

Conclusions: Based on these data, we conclude that elevated serum LDH at diagnosis is an unfavorable prognostic factor in patients with B-CLPD.

Disclosures

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Author notes

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Asterisk with author names denotes non-ASH members.

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