Effective therapy for poor-prognosis non-Hodgkin's lymphoma with 8 weeks of high-dose-intensity combination chemotherapy.

PURPOSE: Despite substantial advances in the treatment of aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, therapeutic results with conventional regimens remain poor in some subsets of patients. In an attempt to improve the prognosis of such patients we used an 8-week, multidrug chemotherapy regimen of high dose-intensity. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Between April 1986 and April 1991, 70 patients with advanced intermediate- or high-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were treated. The median age was 41 years (range, 18 to 69). Fifty-one patients (73%) had stage IV disease; 37 (53%) were Shipp's category 3; 17 (24%) had small noncleaved-cell lymphoma; 35 (50%) had Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status > or = 2; 24 (34%) had two or more extranodal sites involved; and 17 (24%) had bone marrow involvement. The 8-week regimen included cyclophosphamide, etoposide, doxorubicin, vincristine, bleomycin, methotrexate with leucovorin rescue, and prednisone. RESULTS: Sixty-two of 70 patients completed the regimen as planned. Fifty-seven patients (81%) obtained a complete response (CR) and the actuarial 5-year failure-free survival rate is 52%. Thirty-seven patients remain alive and disease-free a median of 35 months (range, 7 to 68) after therapy. Adverse prognostic factors included age more than 50 years, bone marrow involvement, and serum lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) more than 500 IU/L (normal range, 125 to 250). Myelosuppression was responsible for most of the treatment-related toxicity. Severe leukopenia (< 1,000/microL) occurred in all patients and lasted a median of 9 days. Seven patients (10%) died of myelosuppression-related complications; five of these patients were older than 60 years. CONCLUSION: This brief but intensive therapy was effective in treating poor-prognosis patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. With this therapy, patients with small noncleaved-cell lymphoma or Shipp's category 3 disease had treatment outcome similar to the group as a whole. This therapy was not well tolerated by patients older than 60 years, and should not be given to this subgroup. Verification of these results in a randomized trial setting is indicated.