Outcome Disparities in T-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and the Lack of Significant Improvement over the Years: A SEER Database Review
Authors: Crozier Jennifer A , Sher Taimur , Yang Dongyun , Swaika Abhisek , Foran James M. , Tun Han W , Colon-Otero Gerardo , Chanan-Khan Asher Alban , Ailawadhi Sikander 
Published: November 2019

Background: As of 2013, approximately 558,340 people are living with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Outcome disparities have been reported in lymphoid malignancies but a comprehensive analysis, especially with expanding ethnic minorities is necessary. We undertook a large Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) based analysis to describe outcome disparities in different subgroups of T-cell and B-cell NHL patients (pts), with a focus on various ethnicities.

Methods: The SEER 18 Registry data (1973-2011) was utilized for pts with a confirmed diagnosis of T-cell or B-cell NHL. Cases that received a diagnosis at death certificate or autopsy, no follow-up records, no documented age at diagnosis, sex, or race/ethnicity were excluded. Cox proportional hazards models, adjusted for gender, age, race, year (yr) of diagnosis, and stratified by SEER registries were used to evaluate association between pt characteristics and survival. All statistical tests were two-sided and utilized the SAS software (v9.4) with a two-sided significance level of 0.05.

Results: The final analysis included 7,662 pts with T-cell NHL and 84,910 pts with B-cell NHL. The pt demographics are shown in Table 1. Pts were stratified based on yr of diagnosis to study the impact of therapeutic developments on pt outcomes (Table 1). Pts were also divided by T-cell NHL subtype: mature T-cell (9702/3) 51%, angioimmunoblastic T-cell (9705/3) 16%, anaplastic large cell (ALCL) (9714/3) 32%, and hepatosplenic gamma-delta cell (HSϒd) (9716/3) 0.8%. Median age at diagnosis was youngest for AA pts (54 yrs) and oldest for Asian pts (65 yrs) (Figure 1 A). Survival analysis revealed that females had a better median OS than males (3.3 yrs vs. 2.3 yrs, HR 0.876; 95% CI 0.824, 0.932; p<0.001). Increasing age was an independent predictor of worse overall survival, with pts age 18-44 having a median OS 9.4 yrs (HR 0.345; 95% CI 0.312, 0.382) and pts age ≥75 having a median OS of 1.0 yr (p<0.001). There was no statistically significant difference seen in median OS for pts with respect to yr of diagnosis (p=0.081). Among the different T-cell NHL subtypes, pts with ALCL had the best (3.8 yrs, HR 0.766; 95% CI 0.714, 0.822) and pts with HSϒd had the worst median OS (0.7 yrs HR 1.959; 95% CI 1.424, 2.695) (p<0.001). AA pts (1.7 yrs, HR 1.292; 95% CI 1.176, 1.419) and Hispanic pts (1.9 yrs, HR 1.215; 95% CI 1.087, 1.357) had significantly worse OS compared to White pts who had the longest median OS (3.1 yrs) (p<0.001) (Figure 1 B). To compare and contrast with aggressive B-cell NHL, similar analyses were performed using diffuse large B-cell (DLBCL) NHL (9680/3). DLBCL showed similar trends regarding sex, age and race. Ethnic minorities had significantly worse median OS including Hispanic (2.8 yrs, HR 1.154; 95% CI 1.111, 1.198) and AA pts (3.3 yrs, HR 1.261; 95% CI 1.212, 1.312) compared to White pts with a median OS of 5.8 yrs (p<0.001). B-cell NHL pts had a significant improvement in median OS over time with pts diagnosed in 2007-2011 having more than 3 times the median OS of pts diagnosed in 1973-1991 (7 yrs vs. 2.4 yrs; p<0.001).

Conclusions: Studies of outcome disparities are important for evaluating disease characteristics and their relationship to specific pt populations over time. We have performed the largest population-based analysis for T-cell and B-cell NHL including various ethnicities in the novel therapeutic agent era. We observed that males, older pts and ethnic minorities had worse median OS for both T-cell and B-cell NHL. Despite novel therapeutics targeting T cells there has been no statistically significant improvement in OS over time. In contrast, significant improvement in B-cell NHL OS has been noted, presumably due to the advent of monoclonal antibodies. These results underline the urgency for the development of novel therapeutics as well as aggressive studies of disease biology and healthcare utilization for better triage of healthcare resources, especially for ethnic minorities.

Table 1. Table 1.

Figure 1 Figure 1.

Disclosures

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.