International Prognostic Index

The International Prognostic Index (IPI) is a clinical tool developed by oncologists to aid in predicting the prognosis of patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Prior to 1993, when the IPI was developed, the primary consideration in assessing prognosis was the Ann Arbor stage alone, but this was increasingly found to be an inadequate means of predicting survival outcomes, and so other factors were studied. The International Prognostic Index (IPI) is a clinical tool developed by oncologists to aid in predicting the prognosis of patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Prior to 1993, when the IPI was developed, the primary consideration in assessing prognosis was the Ann Arbor stage alone, but this was increasingly found to be an inadequate means of predicting survival outcomes, and so other factors were studied. A retrospective analysis was performed on 2031 patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, of all ages, treated with a doxorubicin-based chemotherapy regimen such as CHOP between 1982 and 1987. Several patient characteristics were analyzed to determine whether they were associated with differences in survival, and the factors that emerged as significant were, in addition to the Ann Arbor stage: age, elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), performance status, and number of extranodal sites of disease.