What is MALT Lymphoma?

MALT lymphoma is a rare B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that typically runs an indolent or slow-growing clinical course.

MALT is an acronym:

  • Mucosa
  • Associated
  • Lymphatic
  • Tissue

MALT tissue is lymphatic tissue that can be found in various areas throughout the body, including the stomach, the lungs, the thyroid, the salivary glands, the intestines and the eyes. These are extranodal sites (meaning not in lymph nodes). Therefore MALT lymphoma is an extranodal lymphoma.

The disease begins when B-cells in lymphoma tissue in these sites mutates.

The most commonly MALT lymphoma-related organ or area is the stomach. MALT lymphoma originating here accounts for as many as two of every three MALT lymphomas. Furthermore, MALT lymphoma has been associated with a number of other related diseases and health conditions, including Sjogren Syndrome, Celiac Disease, Crohn’s Disease, and Hashimoto Thyroiditis.

Age and Incidence of MALT lymphoma

MALT lymphomas tend to affect older folks, with the majority of people diagnosed with this cancer being at least 60 years old. Of the 67,000 or so non-Hodgkin's lymphomas diagnosed annually, less than 4,000 of them will be diagnosed as MALT lymphomas. It is slightly more common in women than in men.

Symptoms

Most patients who are eventually diagnosed with MALT lymphoma present with:

  • stomach pain
  • indigestion
  • bleeding in the stomach
  • weight loss
  • appetite loss
  • fatigue

Fortunately, these symptoms often bring people to visit a doctor, and as a consequence it is common for the disease to be found in its early stages, before it has had a chance to spread to nearby lymph nodes or to other parts of the body.

Treatment

When MALT lymphoma is found in the stomach, it is often attributed to a bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, in which case treatment often amounts to a heavy dose of antibiotics.

If MALT lymphoma has begun in other organs, other treatment protocols are necessary:

  • Systemic chemotherapy
  • Radiotherapy
  • Surgery
  • Immunotherapy
  • Radioimmunotherapy

Each patient's disease is different, and therefore the treatment response will be different with each patient. In general, outcomes tend to be very good when treating MALT lymphomas.

Photo: Pexels

More Articles

More Articles

Amazon.com is pleased to have the Lymphoma Information Network in the family of Amazon.com associates. We've agreed to ship items...

The question ought to be what are myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), since this is a group of similar blood and bone marrow diseases that...

Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MCC) is a very rare and aggressive skin cancer that usually develops when a person is in his or her 70s. It is...

Radiation Therapy Topics

...

At some point, the Seattle biotech company Cell Therapeutics Inc (CTI) should earn an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for utter and...

Site Beginnings

This site was started as Lymphoma Resource Page(s) in 1994. The site was designed to collect lymphoma...

Three papers appearing in the journal Blood and pointing towards a regulator-suppressor pill could offer hope to blood cancer...

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a third so-called Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the investigational oral...

The US Food and Drug Administration today has approved an expanded use of Imbruvica (ibrutinib) in patients with...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that it has granted "Breakthrough Therapy Designation" for the investigational agent...

According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team from the University of California, San...

Pharmacyclics has announced that the company has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for...

New research suggests that frontline radioimmunotherapy...

Gilead Sciences has announced results of the company's Phase II study of its investigational compound idelalisib, an oral inhibitor of...

Sitemap