ONC3 Anemia of cancer in intermediate grade Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (Ignhl) patients. (Oncology).

ONC3 ANEMIA OF CANCER IN INTERMEDIATE GRADE NON-HODGKIN'S LYMPHOMA (IGNHL) PATIENTS. R. E. Tannous, PharmD, MS, Sanjay Gupta, PhD, MBA, and M. Fridman, PhD. Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Anemia at diagnosis was found to be an important adverse prognostic factor for the outcome of lymphoma patients in a retrospective study. The objective of our study was to evaluate the prevalence of anemia at baseline in IGNHL patients and its association with other clinical characteristics. A retrospective sample of 591 patients diagnosed between 1993 and 1999 and subsequently treated with CHOP chemotherapy was used. Data were collected from twelve different oncology practice sites. Anemia was defined as a hemoglobin (Hb) value < 12 g/dL at baseline. Anemia was present in 193/546 (35.3%) of the patients. Baseline Hb values were not available for 45 patients. Of the 193 anemic patients, 131 (67.9%) patients had Hb values between 10-11.99 (NCI Grade 1; mild), 53 (27.5%) had Hb values between 8-9.99 (NCI Grade 2; moderate), and 9 (4.7%) had Hb values <8 g/dL (NCI Grade 3 & 4; severe to life-threatening). Anemia was significantly associated with age over 60 (38.8% vs. 29.9%), extranodal sites >2 (43.5% vs. 31.5% ), Ann Arbor stage III or IV (41.8% vs. 28.7%), elevated LDH (51.5% vs. 23.3%) and B-symptoms (51.3% vs. 31.3%). Histology data was available for 473 patients, and anemia was most frequently observed in large cell-immunoblastic (56%) and large cleaved or non-cleaved cell (38.9%). Bone marrow involvement data were only partially available and are not reported here. The results support previous finding of a high prevalence of anemia prior to cytotoxic therapy in lymphoma patients. Whether the implementation of early anemia management, especially in poor prognostic patients, improves clinical outcomes will need further evaluation.