What are the treatments for cutaneous T-cell lymphoma?
Treatment of CTCL depends on the stage of the disease. The current staging of this disease was first presented at the International Consensus Conference on CTCL in 1997. The staging attempts to show the complex interaction between the various outward symptoms of the disease and prognosis. The system has seven clinical stages based on skin involvement (tumor = T), lymph node involvement (LN), and presence of visceral metastases (M). The first stage, IA, is characterized by plaques covering less than 10% of the body (T1) and no visceral involvement (M0). Lymph node condition at this stage can be uninvolved, reactive to the skin disease, or dermatopathic (biopsies showing CTCL involvement) but not enlarged (LN0-2). The shorthand expression of this stage is therefore T1, LN0-2, M0. The next stage, IB, differs from IA in that greater than 10% of the body is covered by plaques (T2, LN0-2, M0). Stage IIA occurs with any amount of plaques in addition to the ability to palpate the
