Modified number of extranodal involved sites as a prognosticator in R-CHOP-treated patients with disseminated diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

Background/Aims: Rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone chemotherapy (R-CHOP) has improved survival in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and weakened the prognostic power of the international prognostic index (IPI). We evaluated the efficacy of the IPI and revised IPI (R-IPI) in patients with DLBCL who were treated with R-CHOP, focusing on extranodal site number (ENS) because extranodal involvement occurs frequently in Koreans. Methods: A total of 126 R-CHOP-treated patients with stage III/IV DLBCL were analyzed. We performed a retrospective analysis of the clinicopathologic factors and verified the predictive power of the standard IPI and RIPI. Various numbers of extranodal sites were analyzed for further stratification, and we set the extranodal sitemodified IPI (E-IPI) as the IPI when the number of extranodal sites was stratified as < 3 vs. ≥ 3. Results: A univariate analysis showed that ENS was associated with complete response (CR, p = 0.04), eventfree survival (EFS, p = 0.01), and overall survival (OS, p < 0.001) when the ENS cut-off was set at ≥ 3. A multivariate analysis revealed that an ENS ≥ 3 remained associated with EFS (p < 0.01; hazard ratio [HR], 2.60; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.29 to 5.26) and OS (p < 0.01; HR, 3.52; 95% CI, 1.68 to 7.35). The IPI was effective for determining prognosis in terms of OS (p = 0.04) but not EFS (p = 0.17). The R-IPI was effective in terms of both variables (p = 0.02 and 0.04, respectively), as was the E-IPI (p = 0.01 and 0.001, respectively). Conclusions: An ENS < 3 vs. ≥ 3, rather than the original < 2 vs. ≥ 2, was the most significant prognostic factor for EFS and OS. All three indices were predictive, but only the E-IPI identified the high-risk group of R-CHOPtreated Korean patients with disseminated DLBCL.