Predominantly gastrointestinal symptoms and signs in 11 consecutive AIDS patients with gastrointestinal lymphoma: a multicenter, multiyear study including 763 HIV-seropositive patients.

OBJECTIVES: Gastrointestinal lymphoma is a distinct subgroup of lymphoma in HIV-seronegative patients. This study analyzes whether gastrointestinal lymphoma similarly forms a distinct clinical subgroup in HIV-seropositive patients.

METHODS: Case control study of medical records of 763 human immunodeficiency virus-seropositive patients admitted to three university hospitals from 1986 through 1992, including 22 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Eleven patients (50%) had gastrointestinal lymphoma, and 11 controls had extraintestinal lymphoma.

RESULTS: The clinical presentation in patients with gastrointestinal lymphoma was dominated by gastrointestinal symptoms and signs and gastrointestinal complications. Common symptoms and signs included: change in bowel habits, gross or occult blood per rectum, involuntary weight loss, abdominal pain, abdominal tenderness, peripheral lymphadenopathy, cachexia, and hepatosplenomegaly. Significant gastrointestinal complications during the presenting admission included gastrointestinal bleeding in five, intestinal obstruction in one, and dysphagia from an esophageal stricture in one. Subsequent complications included a walled-off perforating gastric ulcer in one and obstructive jaundice in one. In contrast, the control patients with extraintestinal lymphoma had significantly fewer gastrointestinal symptoms and gastrointestinal complications (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively, Fisher's exact test). Upper gastrointestinal series or barium enema identified lymphomatous gastrointestinal lesions in all seven patients undergoing these tests. The pathologic diagnosis was made from endoscopic biopsies in six of six patients undergoing panendoscopy, and two of three patients undergoing lower endoscopy. Tumor sites included stomach in six, colon in three, ileum in two, esophagus in two, and duodenum in one. Eight patients had extraintestinal lesions at diagnosis, including four with extraabdominal extranodal lesions. The outcome of gastrointestinal lymphoma was poor with all therapies (mean combined survival = 3.6 +/- 2.2 months), and was not significantly different from that for the controls (mean survival = 4.1 +/- 2.7 months, Student's t test).

CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that gastrointestinal lymphoma in AIDS shares the poor prognosis and aggressive features of extraintestinal lymphoma in AIDS, but has unique localizing features at presentation of predominantly gastrointestinal symptoms and signs, and frequent gastrointestinal complications.