Intensive Chemotherapy of 107 Primary Mediastinal B-Cell Lymphoma Patients. Single Center Experience

Introduction. Primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL) amounts from 0,9 to 4% of Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas. Predominantly suffer young women. All relapses in PMBCL occur as early events. Taking into account unfavorable prognosis in case of relapse or progression of PMBCL (2-year overall survival (OS) is about 15% [Kurvilla J., 2008]), it's necessary to achieve a complete remission (CR) in first line treatment.

Aim. To compare an efficacy of R-DA-EPOCH followed by R-DHAP and autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (autoSCT) with BEAM conditioning regimen with modified (m) NHL-BFM-90 chemotherapy protocol in pts with partial remission (PR) of PMBCL.

Patients and Methods. In 107 pts (34 males, 73 females) diagnosis of PMBCL was established according to WHO criteria. All pts had stage II of disease according to Ann Arbor classification. 30 pts received R-DA-EPOCH, 77 pts - m-NHL-BFM-90 ± R. Median age of pts in R-DA-EPOCH group was 28 years old (from 20 to 67 years old); in m-NHL-BFM-90 ± R-group - 77 years old. Increased LDH concentration was revealed in 24 from 30 (80%) pts in R-DA-EPOCH group and in 75/77 (97%) pts from m-NHL-BFM-90 ± R group. Bulky mediastinal disease was in 30/30 (100%) pts in R-DA-EPOCH group and in 59/77 (76%) - m-NHL-BFM-90 ± R group. In case of CR after 6 courses according to computer tomography and PET scanning treatment was completed. In case of PR pts underwent 2 R-DHAP courses with autoSCT (BEAM conditioning regimen). All pts from m-NHL-BFM-90 ± R group independently from PET-results stopped treatment. All cases of treatment failure occurred till one year of observation. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate OS and relapse-free survival (RFS). OS was defined as time from diagnosis to death from any reason; RFS was defined as time from diagnosis until relapse or death from any cause.

Results: After 6 R-DA-EPOCH therapy CR was achieved in 24/30 (80%) pts, 6/30 (20%) pts had PR and underwent 2 R-DHAP courses followed by auto-SCT (BEAM). 2- RFS and OS was 100%. Median follow up was 16 months. In m-NHL-BFM-90 ± R group 10-year RFS and OS were 85% and 92%, respectively. Median follow up was 53 months.

Conclusion: High dose pulsed m-NHL-BFM-90-chemotherapy as well as R-DA-EPOCH allows getting high efficacy of primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma therapy. Although future analysis will show more distant results of R-DA-EPOCH chemotherapy.