The optimal treatment of advanced sporadic Burkitt lymphoma in adults is still a matter of debate. The salutary results of pediatric therapies did open the road for improving the adult outcome. Between May 1988 and March 2009, 71 consecutive patients-46 adults, 25 children-affected by Burkitt lymphoma/leukemia were treated with the same intensive pediatric protocol alternating vincristine, adriamycine and fractionated ciclophosphamide (phase A) with high dose methotrexate and high dose cytarabine (phase B) in four Italian institutions. Eighty-nine per cent of patients were in Stage III-IV or had L3 leukemia. Complete remissions were 67/71 (94.4%), 24/25 (96%) in children, and 43/46 (93.5%) in adults. Toxic deaths were 3/71 (4.2%), all in adults. There were nine relapses (one in children, eight in adults), all but one observed early. After a median observation of 94 months (range 23-275), the Event-Free Survival rate is 92% in children and 71.7% in adults (P 5 0.067). The 23 more recent adults received also rituximab, without differences in outcome as compared to patients who did not. Our experience confirms that such an intensive pediatric-derived chemotherapy is feasible and improves the long-term outcome of adults with advanced Burkitt lymphoma. Am. J. Hematol. 87:22-25, 2012. V V C 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
IntroductionFifty years after its description [1] the optimal treatment of adult sporadic Burkitt lymphoma/leukemia (BL) still represents a matter of debate [2]. Standard chemotherapy such as CHOP [3] or adult ALL regimens [4] are clearly inadequate for treating BL, with a long term survival ranging from 0 to 30%. By contrast, the employment of intensive pediatric regimens in adult patients determined better results [5][6][7][8]. The HyperCVAD regimen, developed at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, confirmed a good activity in BL patients. However, the authors observed that patients older than 60 years clearly had an inferior outcome, with a survival rate of only 17% [9]. The addition of Rituximab and the improvement in supportive care measures possibly contributed to the achievement of similar outcomes in older and younger adults [10].In 1997, we reported a monocentric experience of 21 patients (8 adults and 13 children) treated with the intensive short-term pediatric-derived chemotherapy regimen POG 8617 [11], demonstrating that the outcome in adults was not significantly different than in children [12]. Fourteen years after our original report, we present here the longterm results of the same chemotherapy regimen employed in a multicenter experience recruiting a larger cohort of 71 consecutive BL patients. Of note, 48% of adult patients were older than 40 years and Rituximab was added to chemotherapy in the more recently enrolled adult patients. With a median follow-up of about 8.5 years, we confirm that this intensive pediatric-derived regimen is safe and improves the outcome of adults with advanced BL.