New regimen effective for refractory non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma

A new combination of five chemotherapeutic agents is safe and effective for patients with poor prognostic refractory or multiple disease recurrent aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), according to the results of a phase II trial.

“CIBO-P (lomustine, ifosfamide, bleomycin, vincristine, and cisplatin) is a novel salvage regimen for patients with aggressive NHL,” Dr. Antonino Musolino from University Hospital of Parma, Italy told Reuters Health. “It has clinically significant activity with a favorable toxicity profile in primary refractory disease and patients treated at second or subsequent relapses.”Dr. Musolino and colleagues investigated the safety and activity of CIBO-P in 43 patients with recurrent or refractory aggressive NHL and evaluated the long-term results.The overall response rate was 70%, the authors report, with 19 patients achieving a complete remission and 11 patients achieving a partial remission.The median time to treatment failure was 4.9 months; the median progression-free survival was 6.8 months, and the median overall survival was 10.7 months, the report indicates.Five patients remained disease free after 24 months, the researchers note, and three patients were alive with no evidence of disease after 44 months.Most patients experienced myelosuppression with CIBO-P, the results indicate, but there were no treatment-related deaths.Independent predictors of complete remission were having achieved a complete remission with previous therapy and serum lactate dehydrogenase, the investigators report.”CIBO-P has a great potential as a cytoreductive regimen before high-dose chemotherapy,” the authors conclude. “CIBO-P, therefore, warrants further evaluation in patients with first disease recurrence in randomized studies against other platinum-based regimens.”The findings are published in May 15th issue of Cancer.(Source: Cancer 2005;103:2109-2117: Reuters Health: Oncolink: June 2005.)