The size and depth of lesions measured by endoscopic ultrasonography are novel prognostic factors of primary gastric diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Diffuse large B cell lymphoma is one of the predominant histological subtypes of primary gastric lymphomas. Factors that contribute to precise stratification and guide the treatment of this disease are still not well understood. We analyzed 73 primary gastric diffuse large B cell lymphoma patients retrospectively, and found that patients characterized by late stage, multiple localization, B symptoms, lower serum albumin level and elevated LDH level had a shorter overall survival through Univariate Cox regression analysis. Multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that ALB ≤ 35g/L, staging ≥ IIE and multiple sites localization were independent adverse prognostic factors. Significantly, in 35 patients who received endoscopy at diagnosis, Kaplan-Meier analyses indicated that patients with large (≥3 cm) and deep lesions (≥11 mm) had an inferior OS (p = .01 and .039). These findings implicated that tumor size and depth are two indicators of prognosis under ultrasonography. Further randomized studies with large number of cases are needed.