Alteration in Characteristics and Outcome of Pediatric Burkitt Lymphoma in Turkey: Single-center Experience

Abstract

Burkitt Lymphoma (BL) is an aggressive and rapidly progressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL), and BL gives rise to 3-4% of all childhood malignancies. Its event-free survival has increased up to 85% with current treatment protocols. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether there are some alterations of the clinical and laboratory features of BL at our center in Turkey before and now, or not. METHODS We gathered medical records of a total of 101 patients with BL who were treated in our center retrospectively and assessed for laboratory findings, clinical characteristics, prognostic factors and treatment protocols. RESULTS We found that, nowadays, intra-abdominal presentation of BL was seen more frequently than past at our center in Turkey. However, there was no statistically significant difference. BL was numerically meaningful. Murphy's treatment protocol was more satisfactory compared to past treatment protocols. CONCLUSION Our comparison of the previous and present features of patients showed that there is a shift away from the jaw to mostly intra-abdominal disease presentation at our center, like Uganda, in the course of time. And we also have a large number of patients and the follow-up period is very long (median 111 months for all patients) in the literature. We think that the intra-abdominal component is seen more in our geography with time, but it should be evaluated with more studies in other geographies, especially in Europe and America.