Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy is effective in the treatment of early-stage H pylori-positive gastric diffuse large B-cell lymphomas

An explorative study evaluates the efficacy of Helicobacter pylori (HP) eradication (HPE) therapy on early-stage gastric diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCLs) without features of mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT), the pure (de novo) DLBCLs, in comparison with its efficacy on high-grade transformed gastric MALT lymphomas, the DLBCL(MALT). In total, 50 patients of stage IE/IIE1 HP-positive gastric DLBCLs with frontline HPE treatment were included. HP infection was successfully eradicated in 100% (16/16) of the pure (de novo) DLBCL patients and 94.1% (32/34) of the DLBCL(MALT) patients. In total, 68.8% (11/16) of pure (de novo) DLBCL patients and 56.3% (18/32) of DLBCL(MALT) patients achieved complete pathologic remission (pCR) after HPE therapy. The median time to pCR was 2.1 months (95% confidence interval, 0.6%-3.7%) for pure (de novo) DLBCLs and 5.0 months (95% confidence interval, 2.8%-7.5%; P = .024) for DLBCL(MALT). At a median follow-up of 7.7 years, all patients with pCR after HPE therapy were alive and free of lymphomas, except for one patient with pure (de novo) DLBCL who died of lung cancer. Similar to DLBCL(MALT), a substantial portion of early-stage HP-positive gastric pure (de novo) DLBCLs remains HP-dependent and responds to antibiotic treatment. Prospective studies to validate the findings are warranted. (Blood. 2012;119(21):4838-4844)