Prognostic factors of patients with mycosis fungoides

Introduction
Mycosis fungoides (MF) is the most common type of primary cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Prognostic factors may help to evaluate the course of the disease and may also be useful in selecting appropriate treatment plans for patients.

Aim
To investigate the potential prognostic factors of MF and their correlations with MF stage.

Material and methods
We evaluated the records of patients with MF who were followed in our lymphoma clinic between 1998 and 2015. Age, sex, disease stage, peripheral blood eosinophilia, eosinophil cationic protein, serum total IgE, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and b2-microglobulin levels were investigated and recorded at the time of diagnosis.

Results
There was a statistically significant positive correlation between high b2-microglobulin levels and the advanced stage of disease (p < 0.001). The older group of patients had statistically significantly higher levels of b2-microglobulin compared to the younger group (p = 0.001). We found strong, significantly positive correlations between disease stage and b2-microglobulin, LDH, and total IgE levels (p < 0.001, rho = 0.335; p = 0.001, r = 0.302; p = 0.001, r = 0.311, respectively). Additionally, there were significantly positive correlations between LDH levels and b2-microglobulin, total IgE levels (p < 0.001, rho = 0.484; p = 0.001, r = 0.212, respectively). Study limitations: A limited number of patients and the retrospective nature of the study.

Conclusions
We found that b2-microglobulin was a significant prognostic factor in our study population of MF patients. Also, elevated LDH, b2-microglobulin, and total IgE levels were correlated with advanced disease. Thus, these parameters can be used together to identify patients who have progressed to the later stages of the disease and who require more aggressive treatment.