Letters to Editor Fernando Callera Alvaro Azevedo Vital Brasil Anna Raquel de Lima Casali Carla Cecília Mulin Evandro Secchi Rosa Maíra de Assis Barbosa Thais Domitila Freire Vieira Grupo de Onco-Hematologia do Vale do Paraíba – GOHV, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil Conflict-of-interest disclosure: The authors declare no competing financial interest Submitted: 12/5/2011 Accepted: 12/21/2011 Corresponding author: Fernando Callera Grupo de Onco-Hematologia do Vale do Paraíba – GOHV Rua Euclides Miragaia 700, Sala 75 – Centro 12245-820 – São José dos Campos SP, Brazil Phone: 55 12 3207-9846 fcallera@gmail.com www.rbhh.org or www.scielo.br/rbhh DOI: 10.5581/1516-8484.20120038 168 Survival of patients diagnosed with subsets of lymphoid neoplasms and acute myeloid leukemia from 2000 to 2010 in the Vale do Paraíba, State of São Paulo: are we going the right way? We recently reported on the demographic characteristics, prevalence and incidence of oncohematological diseases in the Vale do Paraíba, State of São Paulo.(1) However, there are insufficient data to provide specific information on survival rates of patients with oncohematological diseases in this region. Against this background, the Grupo de Onco-Hematologia do Vale do Paraíba (GOHV) set out to assess the survival of patients with subtypes of lymphoid neoplasms and acute non-promyelocytic leukemia (AML). The GOHV consists of medical oncohematological representatives of the following services: Hospital Frei Galvão of Guaratinguetá, Hospital Regional de Vale do Paraíba located in the city of Taubaté, Oncovida, Centro de Oncohematologia of Taubaté, Hospital PIO XII in São José dos Campos and the Serviço de Hematologia de São José dos Campos. The services of Hospital Frei Galvão, Hospital Regional de Vale do Paraíba and Hospital PIO XII in São José dos Campos are referral centers in the Regional Health Division XVII, composed of 39 municipalities in the Vale do Paraíba. Together, the services that comprise the GOHV attend all adult Brazilian National Health Service patients in the region as well as more than 90 percent of adult patients of other healthcare insurers. A retrospective study was carried out from January 2000 to December 2010 and a total of 682 over 19-year-old patients were enrolled. The diagnoses of lymphomas, multiple myeloma (MM) and AML were based on the criteria of the World Health Organization and the French-American-British classifications.(2,3) The subtypes of lymphoid neoplasms analyzed were diffuse large B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (DLBCL – n = 212; median age 59 years; range: 20-86), follicular lymphoma (FL – n = 112; median age 63 years; range: 47-85), Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL – n = 132; median age 32 years; range: 19-74) and multiple myeloma (MM – n = 129; median age 65 years; range: 38-94). Among the patients with AML (n = 97) the median age was 67 years (range: 19-84). Overall survival (OS) was defined as the time interval from the date of diagnosis to death from any cause or to the last follow-up in censored patients. Survival analysis was carried out according to the Kaplan-Meier method. The median time of follow-up was 58 months. The median survival rates were undefined for DLBCL, FL and HL, 38 months for MM and four months for AML. The OS curves according to diagnosis are shown in Figure 1. The estimated 5-year OS obtained from the survival curves of the patients diagnosed with lymphoid neoplasms and AML were compared with the results of the European Cancer Registry based project on hematologic malignancies (HAEMACARE)(4) and the specialized registry of hematologic malignancies of Côte d'Or, France,(5) respectively. The HAEMACARE project Figure 1 – OS curves ( ) and 95% confidence interval (....) according to diagnosis A - Diffuse large B-cell lymphona (n = 212) Rev Bras Hematol Hemoter. 2012;34(2):168-71