B symptoms

B symptoms refer to systemic symptoms of fever, night sweats, and weight loss which can be associated with both Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The presence or absence of B symptoms has prognostic significance and is reflected in the staging of these lymphomas.

Description and nomenclature

B symptoms are so called because Ann Arbor staging of lymphomas includes both a number (I-IV) and a letter (A or B);. "A" indicates the absence of systemic symptoms, while "B" indicates their presence.

B symptoms include:

Prognostic importance

The presence of B symptoms is a marker for more advanced disease with systemic, rather than merely local, involvement. B symptoms are a clear negative prognostic factor in Hodgkin lymphoma. The relevance of B symptoms in non-Hodgkin lymphoma is less clear, although here also B symptoms tend to correlate with disease that is either more widespread or of a higher histologic grade.