NON-HODGKINS-LYMPHOMA AND AIDS - FREQUENCY OF GASTROINTESTINAL INVOLVEMENT IN A LARGE ITALIAN SERIES

Even though the close association between AIDS and non-Hodgkin's lymph oma (NHL) is widely known, few studies have evaluated the frequency of gastrointestinal involvement in a large series of AIDS patients with heterogeneous risk factors. We therefore reviewed the demographic and clinical features of patients with AIDS and NHL seen at our institutio n over a period of 5 years. NHLs complicated AIDS in 70 of 786 (9%) ca ses in our study. All but one of the tumours were of high- or intermed iate-grade histologic subtype, and 80% of 56 patients with diagnosis m ade during lifetime had disease stages III or IV, most with extranodal localization. The gastrointestinal tract was involved in 23 cases (33 %), 13 of whom had an antemortem diagnosis. All these patients complai ned of significant symptoms, the most frequent being GI bleeding follo wed by recurrent abdominal pain with or without masses. Three patients had evidence of lymphomatous disease along both the upper and lower G I tract, but more often a single localization was present. Prognosis o f patients with NHLs was very poor, and there was no significant diffe rence in survival between patients with and without GI localization at the time of initial diagnosis.