2Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Medical Park International Hospital, İstanbul-Turkey
3Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Bülent Ecevit University Faculty of Medicine, Zonguldak-Turkey
4Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Yıldırım Beyazıt University Yenimahalle Training and Research Hospital, Ankara-Turkey
5Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Dr. Sami Ulus Maternity, Children?s Health and Diseases Training and Research Hospital, Ankara-Turkey DOI : 10.5505/tjo.2019.2138 OBJECTIVE
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.