Advanced Ann Arbor stage and age over 60 years as prognostic predictors in patients with primary cervical lymphoma: a retrospective cohort study and systematic review

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and recurrence-free survival (RFS) for primary cervical lymphoma (PCL), an extremely rare disease without treatment consensus. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study included 177 patients, including 169 cases identified from literature review. The Kaplan-Meier methods and Cox regression were used to determine the OS, DSS, RFS, and relevant risk factors. RESULTS: The 5-year OS and 5-year DSS rates were 85.8 and 87.2%, respectively, while the 5-year RFS rate was 85.5%. Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) was the predominant subtype that comprised 63.8% (113 cases) in this cohort. Multivariate analysis in the DLBCL subgroup revealed that age ≥ 60 years (Odds ratio [OR]: 26.324, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 5.090–136.144, P < 0.001) or stage IIIE-IVE (advanced stage) (OR: 4.219, 95%CI: 1.314–13.551, P = 0.016) were the risk factors for OS, while patients with age ≥ 60 years (OR:23.015, 95%CI: 3.857–137.324, P = 0.001), and stage IIIE-IVE (OR: 4.056, 95% CI: 1.137–14.469, P = 0.031) suffered a poor DSS. Chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy improved the OS (P = 0.008), DSS (P = 0.049), and RFS (P = 0.003). However, cancer-directed surgery did not improve the OS, DSS, and RFS. The risk factor was unavailable in other subtypes of PCL due to limited cases. CONCLUSION: The survival outcomes in patients with PCL at early stage were satisfactory, while the advanced disease stage and age ≥ 60 years were the two major factors predicting poor prognosis in DLBCL subtype. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-023-10548-4.