The prognostic significance of phenotype in malignant lymphomas (ML) is a matter of controversy. Here we analyze the clinical presentation, response to treatment, and survival of the 361 phenotyped patients with ML who were treated by the LNH-84 regimen. Histologic subtypes were diffuse-small cell in 10 patients, diffuse mixed in 69, diffuse large-cell in 177, immunoblastic in 94, and anaplastic large-cell in 11. One hundred and eight patients (30%) had a peripheral T-cell ML and 253 (70%) a B-cell ML. Most of B-cell MLs were of diffuse large-cell type, and the T-cell MLs were distributed among diffuse mixed and immunoblastic subtypes. T-cell MLs had an aggressive presentation with more patients having advanced stage (21% versus 41% stage II, 53% versus 45% stage IV, p = .0002), and B symptoms (58% versus 42%, p less than .01). The only significant difference in clinical manifestations were the higher frequency of gastrointestinal involvement in B-cell MLs (20% versus 2%, p less than .0001) and the more frequent spleen (39% versus 21%, p = .0005) and skin (19% versus 3%, p less than .0001) involvement in T-cell MLs. There was no difference in response to the LNH-84 regiment between the two subgroups, but T-cell ML patients relapsed at a higher rate (43% versus 29%, p less than .001). T-cell ML patients have a significantly shorter freedom-from-relapse (FFR) survival (median: 34 months versus not reached, logrank test: p = .002) and a non-significant shorter overall survival (median: 42 versus 50 months).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The objectives of this study were to determine prognostic factors for response to treatment, freedom-from-relapse (FFR) survival, and overall survival of 737 aggressive malignant lymphoma patients treated with the doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vindesine, bleomycin, methylprednisolone, methotrexate with leucovorin, ifosfamide, etoposide, asparaginase, and cytarabine (LNH-84) regimen; to construct a prognostic index with factors isolated by multivariate analyses; and to validate this prognostic index with another set of patients. Complete response (CR) was reached in 75% of LNH-84 patients, and 30% of them relapsed. With a median follow-up of 36 months, median FFR survival and median overall survival were not reached. Low serum albumin level, high tumoral mass, weight loss, bone marrow involvement, greater than or equal to 2 extranodal sites, and increased lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) level were associated with a low response rate. Advanced stage, increased LDH level, and nonlarge-cell histologic subtypes (diffuse mixed, lymphoblastic, and small non-cleaved) were statistically associated with a high relapse rate and short FFR survival. Increased LDH level, low serum albumin level, tumoral mass larger than 10 cm, greater than or equal to 2 extranodal sites, advanced stage, and age older than 65 years were statistically associated with short overall survival. Four of these parameters, namely, LDH level, stage, number of extranodal sites, and tumoral mass, were put together to construct a prognostic index. This index partitioned LNH-84 patients into three subgroups of good, intermediate, and poor prognosis (P less than .00001): CR rates of 93%, 83%, and 61%; relapse rates of 12%, 25%, and 45%; 3-year FFR survival of 87%, 73%, and 53%, and 3-year survival of 88%, 71%, and 41%, respectively. This prognostic index was applied to a test set of patients: 155 patients treated on protocols of the Nebraska Lymphoma Study Group. Using this index, these patients had 3-year FFR survival of 70%, 40%, and 22% (P = .0002) and 3-year survival of 79%, 52%, and 31% (P = .005). In patients with aggressive lymphomas, this simple prognostic index could distinguish between patients requiring intensive treatment such as autologous bone marrow transplantation in first complete remission and those who could be treated with standard regimens.

Results obtained when this model was applied to aggressive lymphoma patients included in the LNH-87 protocol led to the demonstration of a strong relationship between received RDI and survival.

The multicentre phase III CORAL study aims to guide choice of salvage chemotherapy in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and assess the role of rituximab maintenance after autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT). Patients are first randomised between ICE (ifosfamide, carboplatin, etoposide) and DHAP (dexamethasone, ara-C and cisplatin), both combined with rituximab (R-ICE or R-DHAP). After three courses, responders are treated by ASCT with BEAM. A second randomisation then allocates patients to maintenance treatment with rituximab 375 mg/m(2), one injection every 2 months six times, or observation. Accrual to the study is now proceeding well and the planned 400 patients are likely to be enrolled within the next 1.5 years. Results to date are very preliminary but suggest encouraging rates of response. However, they also indicate that initial exposure to rituximab may increase the difficulty of salvaging patients who fail first-line therapy.

This cohort study confirms the high efficacy of front-line ASCT in responding aggressive B-NHL patients with adverse prognostic factors.