Book 4 - Self Instructional Manual for Cancer Registrars - SEER ...

Non-Hodgkin's Malignant LYmphoma. The classification of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma hasundergone many changes. Most diagnostic schemes will describe it in terms of two parameters:pattern of growth and cell type. The most commonly used schemes describe the proliferative patternof growth as:• Nodular (follicular)° DiffuseThere are six systems used throughout the world to classify non-Hodgkin's lymphoma:Rappaport classificationBNLI--British National Lymphoma InvestigationDorfman ClassificationKiel ClassificationLukes-CollinsWorld Health OrganizationSeveral special conferences and meetings have been held to resolve the confusion that resultedfrom the various systems used and to reconcile the differences among them.In 1979, the National Cancer Institute planned and sponsored a multi-institutional study of thesix histopathologic systems used in the classification of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma to assess theirclinical applicability and reproducibility. The results of the study, based on clinical correlations(survival curves, age, sex, presenting sites, and stage of disease), were published as a summary anddescription of a working formulation for clinical usage. 1 The summary does not represent a newclassification system, but rather, is "intended as a means of translation among all systems." It isdiscussed in detail in the ICD-O-2 on pages xxxii-xxxvi.1Cancer 49: 2112-2135, 1982.93