NCCN-IPI in Patients with Diffuse Large B CELL Lymphoma Treated with DA-R-EPOCH. Retrospective Analysis

We analyzed the value of new NCCN-IPI index in patients affected of Large B cell lymphoma (LBCL) treated with DA-EPOCH-R in order to assess the validity of this index in patients treated homogenously with dose adjusted R-EPOCH.

Patients and protocol: We analyzed the use of NCCN-IPI (Zhou et al, 2014) index in a retrospective cohort of 98 DLBCL patients treated with -EPOCH. These patients were included in DA-EPOCH using IPI(Shipp M.A., 1993) as criteria of inclusion, including only patients (95 patients, 96%)with suspected bad prognosis based in IPI (2-5) and 3 patients with primary mediastinal large B cell lymphoma (PMLBCL). R-EPOCH was administered as reported previously(Wilson et al, 2013). Only 10 patients (10%) were Ann Arbor stage I or II.

Results: The median age of the cohort was 57,13(15-82), 47 woman, 75 patients alived. The median follow-up of the patients alive is 6,7 years (1,3-11). Ann Arbor stage was IVB in 44 patients, and IVA in 21. Responses during treatment: Complete response (CR): 81 (82%), refractory during treatment: 7 (7%), death during treatment: 7 (7%). The number of patients who relapsed after treatment was 19 (20%). The median overall (OS) survival of all patients was not reached, (at 5 years, 0.669, CI: 0.562-0.798). The progression free survival (PFS) at 5 years is 0.62, CI: 0.483-0.795. We classify by the new NCCN-IPI the patients in Low-Intermediate risk (L-I)(3 patients, 3%), High-Intermediate risk (H-I)(38, 44%) and High risk (HR) (45, 52%). The OS at 5 years in H-I is 0.839 (CI: 0.73-0.96) and HR was 0.56 (CI: 0.421-0.754), p=0.025. The PFS at 5 years in H-I is 0.65 (CI: 0.518-0.826) and HR is 0.57 (CI: 0.43-0.755), p=0.4.

Conclusions: NCCN-IPI discriminates well prognosis between HR/H-I patients with DLBCNHL treated with DA-EPOCH-R. The results of this retrospective analysis of high and intermediate high-risk patients compares better than the published in patients treated with R-CHOP. PFS were similar in H-I and HR; differences in OS could be explain by differences in outcome after salvage treatment with autologous stem cell