Abstract: Objective To investigate the clinical features and endoscopic characteristics of primary gastrointestinal lymphoma (PGIL). Methods Clinical, endoscopic records and pathological results of PGIL diagnosed by histopathology and immunohistochemistry in Department of Gastroenterology, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University from January 2015 to August 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Eighty-two patients were enrolled, including 45 males and 37 females, and the median age was 64 years old. Results Fifty-four patients were diagnosed with primary gastric lymphoma (PGL), accounting for 65.9%, and the lesions of most cases involved more than 2 sites. The cases of patients of small intestine lymphoma and colorectum lymphoma were 17 and 11, accounting for 20.7% and 13.4%, respectively. The clinical features were non-specific and varied in patients, of which abdominal pain/discomfort, gastrointestinal bleeding, weight loss and dyspepsia were prominent complains. Anemia and elevated lactate dehydrogenase were found within the blood test of some PGIL patients. Ulcerative lesions with increased brittleness were the most frequent endoscopic features for all the PGIL patients. Most of the pathological types were B cell lymphoma, and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma(DLBCL) was very common. The 5-year accumulate survival rate of gastric lymphoma was better than that of intestinal lymphoma. Conclusions PGIL was particularly prevalent in middle aged male, which was mainly represented with B cell lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma was the most common histological subtype. Ulcerative lesions with increased brittleness were the most frequent endoscopic features. It is necessary for clinicians to repeat endoscopy for biopsy and identify the lesions to improve the accuracy of diagnosis.

Key words: primary gastrointestinal lymphoma, clinical features, endoscopic characteristics, ulceration