Abdominal Burkitt’s lymphoma in Children

Background: Burkitt’s lymphoma is a high grade B-cell neoplasm, which is a kind of small non-cleaved cell lymphoma. It is presumably the fastest growing human malignancy, and the patients are prone to develop tumor-lysis syndrome. Here we present findings on our patients with Burkitt lymphoma. Materials and Methods: This descriptive retrospective study included 46 children with abdominal Burkitt s lymphoma who were treated during 15 years from June 1998 to Dec 2013 at Mofid Children’s Hospital. Results: Offourty six patients 32 (70%) were boys and 14 (30%) were girls with ages ranging from 2 to 14 years. Surgical exploration was carried out in all cases, the lesions were located in the small intestine (N=17), large intestine (N=15), ileocecal region (N=12), and stomach (N=2). We performed a complete mass resection in 16 cases, debulking in 10 and lymph node/mass biopsy in 20 cases. Pathologic examination revealed Burkitt’s lymphoma for all patients. The majority were stageIIE and stage IIIE (24 and 19 respectively). Post-operative complications were seen in five cases with the most common being persistent ileus. All patients received a sort of systemic chemotherapy. The mean follow up duration was 6 years. Death occurred in 7(15%) of our patients, due to tumor lysis syndrome and acute renal failure. Conclusion: The extent ofdisease at presentation is the most important prognostic factor in abdominal Burkitt’s lymphoma. Children with BL are at a high risk of tumor-lysis syndrome before or during chemotherapy. Surgery still plays an important role in this pathology, and chemotherapy offers an excellent chance for long term disease free survival.