The peripheral T-cell lymphomas of 50 patients were classified by histological type and tumour cell size, the latter as described by the Nebraska Group. There was no difference in the pattern of their clinical features among the various histological subtypes and their clinical outcome was similar. Cell size and other factors including sex, age, presence of B symptoms, sites of primary disease, histological subtypes according to the Japanese classification, lactate dehydrogenase level and presence of bulky disease did not appear to correlate with clinical outcome. However, patients with stage IV disease had significantly lower CR rate (9/29 versus 16/21, p = 0.01) and poorer survival at 3 years (p = 0.05) than those with stage I, II and III disease. Patients receiving COPP, the less intensive chemotherapy regimen, appeared to have poorer clinical outcome but the difference observed was not statistically significant because of the number of patients in each subgroup.