Rationale and Objectives-A reliable non-invasive method for in vivo detection of early therapeutic response of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) patients would be of great clinical value. This study evaluates the feasibility of 1 H and 31 P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for in vivo detection of response to combination chemotherapy of human diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLCL2) xenografts in SCID mice.Materials and Methods. C-ombination chemotherapy with Cyclophosphamide, Hydroxydoxorubicin, Oncovin, Prednisone, and Bryostatin 1 (CHOPB) was administered to tumorbearing SCID mice weekly for up to four cycles. Spectroscopic studies were performed before the initiation of treatment and after each cycle of the CHOPB. Proton MRS for detection of lactate and total choline was performed using a selective multiple-quantum-coherence-transfer (Sel-MQC) and a spin-echo-enhanced Sel-MQC (SEE-Sel-MQC) pulse sequence, respectively. Phosphorus-31 MRS utilizing a non-localized single-pulse sequence without proton decoupling was performed on these animals.Results-Significant decreases in lactate and total choline were detected in the DLCL2 tumors after one cycle of CHOPB chemotherapy. The ratio of phosphomonoesters to β-nucleoside triphosphate (PME/βNTP, measured by 31 P MRS) significantly decreased in the CHOPB treated tumors after two cycles of CHOPB. The control tumors did not exhibit any significant changes in either of these metabolites.Conclusions-This study demonstrates that 1 H MRS and 31 P MRS can detect in vivo therapeutic response of NHL tumors and that lactate and choline offer a number of advantages over PMEs as markers of early therapeutic response.