Several studies have demonstrated that rituximab (R) added to CHOP chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone) can improve the outcomes of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBLC). Nonetheless, there remains room for improvement.
A German study from the pre-rituximab era demonstrated that giving CHOP chemotherapy every two weeks (i.e., CHOP-14) was better than given CHOP every three weeks (i.e., CHOP-21) in patients older than 60 years of age. This type of therapy is also referred to as “dose-dense” therapy, and it is attractive because it theoretically allows less time for cancer cells to grow between chemotherapy cycles. The question of whether CHOP-14 would remain superior to CHOP-21 even after the addition of rituximab is the subject of two ongoing phase 3 clinical trials, one in France and one in the United Kingdom (UK). Dr. David Cunningham presented the results of the latter trial at the recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago. After a median follow-up of about three years, there was no difference in survival between patients treated with R-CHOP-14 or R-CHOP-21. Click here to see the study abstract. These results are consistent with preliminary results from the French study presented in 2010 and confirm that R-CHOP 21 should remain the standard of care for most patients with DLBCL.
At Weill Cornell Medical Center, we believe that improvements in patient outcomes are likely to come from the addition of newer, targeted drugs to R-CHOP rather than increasing the dose or density of older chemotherapy regimens.
New Developments in Lymphoma 