Clinical Presentations of 176 Cases of Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma: A Case Series

Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is a malignant tumor, the incidence of which has been increasing in immune compromised patients during the last two decades.
This study was conducted to determine the most prevalent clinical presenting symptoms of PCNSL patients.
Patients and In this retrospective descriptive study, all PCNSL patients’ data over a 25-year period (1990–2014) were assessed. PCNSL was confirmed pathologically after stereotactic biopsy in the Neurosurgery Department of Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, Tehran, Iran.
A total of 176 cases of PCNSL were enrolled. There were 107 (60.8%) male patients, with a 1.5:1 male: female ratio. The patients most commonly presented in the sixth decade of their lives, with a mean age of 47 ± 1.5 years. The most common presenting symptoms were hemiparesis (56.2%) and headache (51.7%). The periventricular white matter (51.1%) and basal ganglion (48.9%) were the most common sites of involvement, and they frequently affected the supratentorial area (84.7%).
Based on the data from this study, hemiparesis and headache were the most prevalent clinical presenting symptoms of PCNSL. Cognitive impairment and personality changes were also common in these patients.