Unfavorable prognosis of elderly patients with early-stage extranodal nasal-type NK/T-cell lymphoma

Background: Extranodal nasal-type NK (natural killer)/T-cell lymphoma in elderly patients is rare, and its prognosis is unclear. This study aims to investigate the clinical characteristics and prognosis of this lymphoma. Patients and methods: We analyzed 24 patients (age, >60 years old) with early-stage extranodal nasal-type NK/T-cell lymphoma. Among these patients, 23 received radiotherapy alone (n = 15) or radiotherapy and chemotherapy (n = 8) and 1 received chemotherapy alone. Results: Elderly patients with early-stage extranodal nasal-type NK/T-cell lymphoma were characterized by male predominance, good performance, large proportion of localized disease, more comorbidities, low-risk international prognostic index, and unfavorable prognosis. The 5-year cancer-specific survival (CSS), overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS) rates for all patients were 54.3%, 42.0%, and 40.2%, respectively. The 5-year CSS, OS, and PFS rates were 43.5%, 36.6%, and 34.1% in patients who received radiotherapy alone, and 50%, 50%, and 50% in patients who received radiotherapy and chemotherapy, respectively (P = 0.852 for CSS, P = 0.801 for OS, and P = 0.694 for PFS). Four patients died of treatment-related mortality. Conclusion: Elderly patients with early-stage extranodal nasal-type NK/T-cell lymphoma exhibit poor prognosis and need special attention because of high treatment-related mortality.