High thymidine kinase activity is a strong predictive factor for poor prognosis in peripheral T-cell lymphoma treated with cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine and prednisone

Abstract

The prognosis of patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) treated with cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP) is poor, but their laboratory prognostic parameters had not previously been evaluated. We retrospectively reviewed 55 patients with newly diagnosed PTCL treated with CHOP from August 1999 to May 2009 at our institution. We analyzed six laboratory parameters, including thymidine kinase (TK) activity, to evaluate overall survival, which was the primary end-point. In multivariate analysis, the overall survival was significantly worse in patients with high TK activity (hazard ratio 34.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.03–1176.23). The overall response rate among patients with high TK activity was 21.4%, significantly poorer compared with other parameters (p = 0.001). High TK activity predicts poor overall survival among patients with newly diagnosed PTCL treated with CHOP. Response to CHOP treatment is significantly decreased in patients with PTCL with high TK activity.

Keywords::

• Lymphoma and Hodgkin disease
• chemotherapeutic approaches
• prognostication

Acknowledgements

We thank our attending doctors, dedicated fellows and nurses at the Cancer Institute Hospital, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, and we offer special thanks to our patients with lymphoma and their families.

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