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Prevalence and clinical impact of autoimmune diseases and chronic infections in malignant lymphomas at diagnosis

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Abstract

There is increasing evidence for the role of chronic antigenic stimulation (CS) in the development of cancer. Clinical data, however, are rare as is the information on outcome. In this study, the occurrence of chronic infections (CI) and autoimmune diseases (AI) in patients with malignant lymphoma at diagnosis was assessed. Of 367 patients [non-Hodgkin´s lymphoma (NHL) N = 297, Hodgkin´s lymphoma N = 70], 9.8% (N = 36) had a history of chronic antigenic stimulation (4.4% AI, 5.4% CI) at diagnosis. After a median observation time of 74.7 months, 118 patients have died. There were more male patients in this cohort. However, sex ratio among patients with chronic antigenic stimulation was skewed in favor of women (p = 0.018), in particular among lymphoma patients with AI (p = 0.001). NHL patients with autoimmune diseases showed a tendency to develop diffuse large B cell lymphoma [8 of 12 AI + NHL patients (66.7%) vs. 100 of 266 non-CS NHL (37.6%); p = 0.066]. No significant difference in overall survival (OS) between CS and non-CS patients could be observed (median OS after 48 months was: CS 77.7% vs. non-CS 71.8%). In conclusion, chronic antigenic stimulation at diagnosis appears to be associated with a higher prevalence in women, in particular among patients with autoimmune disease. However, no difference in overall survival was observed. This suggests that the presence of chronic inflammatory conditions does not decisively influence the outcome of lymphoma patients.

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Acknowledgments

We want to thank Maria Kössler and Manuela Supparitsch for excellent technical assistance. This work was supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research through the Gen-AU-Child project (GZ 200.136/1-VI/1/2005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine I, Division of Hematology and Hemostaseology, Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC), Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Katrina Vanura, Florentin Späth, Trang Le, Edit Porpaczy, Cathrin Skrabs, Alexander Hauswirth, Karin Fleiß, Florian Wessely, Alexander Gaiger & Ulrich Jäger

  2. Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Andreas Gleiss

  3. Clinical Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Leonhard Müllauer

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  1. Katrina Vanura
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  2. Florentin Späth
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  3. Andreas Gleiss
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  4. Trang Le
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  9. Florian Wessely
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  11. Leonhard Müllauer
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  12. Ulrich Jäger
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Correspondence to Ulrich Jäger.

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Katrina Vanura and Florentin Späth contributed equally to the manuscript.

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Vanura, K., Späth, F., Gleiss, A. et al. Prevalence and clinical impact of autoimmune diseases and chronic infections in malignant lymphomas at diagnosis. Ann Hematol 90, 947–954 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-011-1178-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00277-011-1178-3

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