About the International Prognostic Index for Lymphoma (IPI)

Until the creation of the Follicular Lymphoma International Prognostic Index (FLIPI), the standard prognostic tool for assessing all lymphomas was the International Prognostic Index (IPI). This is a points-based system that allows doctors to guess how a given person's disease is likely to progress, based on a handful of particularly significant common risk factors.


How IPI Works
The IPI was the product of a research project in the 1990s, meaning essentially that it was based on the standard regimens of the 1980s and early 1990s (alkalating agent-based regimens like CHOP). The report of the International Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Prognostic Factors Project, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993, formed the basis for the IPI model. They evaluated data from over 3000 patients in all stages of lymphoma.

IPI established five basic factors known to equate with a worse prognosis (less response to therapy, and shorter overall survival expectancy):

About FLIPI in Follicular Lymphoma

Currently, the standard method for determining the prognosis of follicular lymphoma, and separating low-risk patients (who can delay treatment) from high-risk patients (who may require immediate treatment), is a tool called the Follicular Lymphoma International Prognostic Index (FLIPI).

How FLIPI Works


FLIPI was established in a 2004 article published in Blood, with a large list of European and American co-authors. It identified five risk factors associated with a poorer prognosis (lower survival rates) for follicular lymphoma. Patients get one "point" for each risk factor they carry; essentially, the more points a person accumulates, the more dangerous their disease is: