Retinoids in cutaneous T-Cell lymphomas

Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas (CTCL) are a heterogeneous group of T-cell lymphoproliferative disorders presenting as skin lesions. Mycosis fungoides (MF), characterized by a clonal and epidermotropic skin infiltrate of atypical CD4+CD45RO+ helper/memory T-cells, and its leukemic and erythrodermic variant, the Sézary syndrome (SS) are the most commonly encountered, lymphomatoid papulosis-CD30+ anaplastic T-cell lymphoma spectrum is second, and the least common are the NK-T cell lymphomas, the subcutaneous panniculitic T-cell lymphomas and the otherwise unclassified peripheral T-cell lymphomas (1). MF has an incidence rate of 0.45 per 100,000 person-years based on the most recent epidemiological data from 1992 (2). The clinical evolution of MF may be long and chronic in duration, especially when the involved area is <10% of the total cutaneous surface, and the rate of disease-related death is low overall, except in patients with tumors or lymph node or blood involvement (3). The poor prognosis in late-stage patients results from their immunocompromised status with death from opportunistic infection or sepsis (4,5).