Combined modality therapy for advanced, diffuse lymphocytic and histiocytic lymphomas.

Forty-six previously untreated patients with advanced aggressive non-Hodgkin's (34 poorly differentiated and mixed diffuse, 8 histiocytic and 4 undifferentiated) were treated with a 3 phase combined modality program employing cyclophosphamide (C), hydroxyl-daunomycin (H), vincristine (O), prednisone (P), procarbazine (P) [CHOP(P)] combination chemotherapy in an initial induction phase, radiotherapy and nonmarrow toxic chemotherapy as a second consolidation phase, followed by a third phase of CHOP(P) chemotherapy for four more cycles. Long-term maintenance therapy was not given. High dose involved field radiation in phase II was limited to volumes encompasing less than 50% of the marrow bearing skeleton. The large majority of patients (82%) had such widespread involvement that this limitation precluded the use of local radiation and were treated instead with a mean of 132 rad of fractionated total body irradiation (TBI). Thirty-eight patients (83%) achieved complete remission. Twenty-nine (66%) of the 44 patients evaluable for follow-up, and 22 (61%) of the 36 patients receiving TBI, remain alive in complete remission for observation periods of up to 26 months.

Duke Scholars

Author Dean T. Harrison Emergency Medicine

Author Keith Michael Sullivan Medicine, Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapy