Improving the accuracy in prognosis for Burkitt lymphoma patients.

A recent population-based study on 2000 adult patients with Burkitt lymphoma presented a novel score that takes into account age, race and clinical stage to prognosticate survival. The outcome of patients with Burkitt lymphoma has improved in the last decade, likely due to intensive chemotherapy regimens and anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody therapy. There is, however, a lack of improvement in the outcome of patients older than 60 and in black patients. In this article, we discuss the findings of that study as well as the areas of uncertainty and/or disparity in the prognosis of patients with Burkitt lymphoma.