ABSTRACT
An alternative approach for the assessment of prognosis is to determine the tumor mass using the TBI. The calculation of the TBI is based on the rough clinical estimation of tumor mass obtained by multiplying the percentage of body surface involved by patches, plaques, and tumors by weighted factors. The procedure for calculating the TBI is given in Table 2. In a study based on the material collected by the EORTC between 1975 and 1995, whole body mapping of the skin lesions was performed in 116 patients with CTCL. Both the T stage according to TNM classification and the TBI were determined. Tumor burden index allowed better discrimination of survival than TNM staging (11) (Fig. 1).
