Clinicopathological Features of Malignant Lymphoma Detected by Colonoscopy: An Analysis According to the Endoscopic Classification

Joo, Kwang Ro; Yang, Suk Kyun; Myung, Seung Jae; Chang, Hye Sook; Kim, Young Min; Park, Jong Bum; Kim, Hae Kyung; Choe, Jae Won; Kim, Do Ha; Jung, Hwoon Yong; Hong, Weon Seon; Kim, Jin Ho; Min, Young Il

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: There have been only a few endoscopic studies of lower intestinal lesions of malignant lymphoma. The aims of this study were to classify the ileocolonic lymphomas according to the colonoscopic findings and to reveal the clinicopathological relationship according to the classes.
METHODS
Subjects were 24 cases of ileocolonic lymphomas. We evaluated the clinicopathological features according to their endoscopic findings.
RESULTS
The chief complaints were abdominal pain, bleeding, and abdominal mass. Twenty-six lesions from 22 patients, excluding 2 multiple lymphomatous polyposis, were endoscopically classified as follows: fungating (10 lesions), ulcerofungating (7 lesions), infiltrative (5 lesions), ulceroinfiltrative (3 lesions), and ulcerative (1 lesion). The location of the lesions was the terminal ileum in 11 lesions, the colon in 10 lesions, and both regions in 5 lesions. Within the large bowel, the cecum was involved most frequently, followed by the ascending colon and the remainder. Most of pathological types were the diffuse large cell and the large cell immunoblastic. There was no relationship between the endoscopic findings and the histologic types. Eight cases were manifested as intussusception.
CONCLUSIONS
Ileocolonic lymphomas can be classified endoscopically into five types. Among the types, fungating and ulcerofungating types are the most frequent.