Primary intracerebral malignant lymphoma: report of 248 cases

Object. The authors present a retrospective analysis of 248 immunocompetent patients with primary intracerebral lymphoma treated at 19 French and Belgian medical centers between January 1980 and December 1995. Methods. This study involved 127 female and 121 male patients with a median age of 61 years (range 2–88 years). All tumors available for review were classic diffuse non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, for which the phenotype was determined in 220 patients: 212 (96.4%) were B-cell and eight (3.6%) were T-cell type tumors. According to the Revised European—American classification of lymphoid neoplasms, most lesions were diffuse large cell tumors (62%). A total of 196 tumors were reviewed in 127 patients for whom preoperative computerized tomography and magnetic resonance studies were available. There was a single lesion in 66% of the cases, with a supratentorial location in 87%. Tumor location in the basal ganglia, corpus callosum, or fornix, infiltration of the periventricular ependyma, or a mirror pattern, were...