Pediatric Lymphoma Incidence at Children's Hospital Benghazi from 2014 to 2023

Background: Malignant lymphoma is caused by the neoplastic growth of lymphocytes and can manifest itself diffusely or in one or more lymph node. Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma commonly arise from lymphoid tissue. Hodgkin lymphoma is rare B-cell malignant neoplasm it is mainly divided into two main subtype: classical Hodgkin lymphoma and nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin Lymphoma. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is malignant disorder arising from cell of the immune system and typically present as lymphadenopathy or solid tumor. Objective: Aim of this research is detection of Pediatric lymphoma prevalence and the most common group affected in both age and gender in Children’s Hospital - Benghazi. Methods: Cross sectional study was conducted on 59 cases of pediatric lymphoma. The cases were admitted to Children’s Hospital - Benghazi. within the time period from January 2014 to May 2023. Data were distributed on the basis of age, gender, year of diagnosis, histological type, and others. Result: The highest number recorded was 9 cases in the years 2017, 2019 and 2020 and the lowest number of cases were at the year 2018 with only 2 cases. The average age of the cases found in the archive was 7.7 year of age. The gender distribution was 41 males, in comparison with only 18 females. The most common type of lymphoma would be Hodgkin lymphoma with 34 cases, histological reports showed the most common subtype of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma was Burkitt lymphoma with 9 cases. Conclusion: Pediatric lymphoma in Children’s Hospital Benghazi had a clinical presentation in favor of Hodgkin lymphoma .in this research it was detected the distribution of males was more predominant than females. Most cases found were at 3-4 years of age. medical records showed Stage 3 was the most common stage of the tumor.