Small lymphocytic lymphoma

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What is Small lymphocytic lymphoma?

Lymphoma is divided into 2 broad groups: Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has many subtypes - and one of them is small lymphocytic lymphoma. Small lymphocytic lymphoma primary affects the B cells. It represents the tissue manifestation of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).

Lymphoma means cancer of the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is important to our immune system where it helps to combat infection. The lymphatic system consists of several organs, e.g. lymph nodes, spleen, thymus and bone marrow, where all these are connected by tiny vessels. Lymphatic fluid is the medium that circulates in these tiny vessels. Like blood, it has cells in them. These cells can be divided into 2 types: T cells and B cells.

Who gets Small lymphocytic lymphoma?

Small lymphocytic lymphoma is one of the subtypes of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It represents 7% of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It is one of the common subtypes of indolent (or slow growing) lymphoma.

Racial variation does exist in small lymphocytic lymphoma. This disease is extremely rare in Asian countries like China and Japan. Predisposition to this disease includes caucasian population. Male to female ratio is about 1.7:1.

The median age of diagnosis is 65 years old.

Predisposing Factors

Age: middle-aged to elderly people
Gender: slight male predominance
Racial ethnicity: more common in caucasians, Western society

Progression

With respect to the natural history of lymphoma, small lymphocytic lymphoma is one of the indolent (or slow-growing) lymphomas. This means that it has good prognosis but may not be curable.

The course of small lymphocytic lymphoma is extremely variable depending on the clinical stage.

Generally the staging can be summarised as below:

Stage I - involvement of a single lymph node region or organ or site other than lymph nodes
Stage II - 2 or more lymph node regions involved on the same side of diaphragm
Stage III - 2 or more lymph node regions involved on both sides of diaphragm
Stage IV - one or more organs (e.g. bone marrow) involved

Each stage is subclassified into A and B (e.g. IIA), where B means presence of B symptoms (see below) while A means abscence of the following symptoms: