Pilot Protocol for the Treatment of Patients With Small Non-Cleaved and Diffuse Large Cell Lymphomas

Major improvements in the treatment of childhood non-lymphoblastic lymphomas have taken place in the last ten years. Though the survival rate in low risk patients (i.e., those with stage I & II disease and serum LDH of less than 350 IU/dL) was as high as 90% with the previous Pediatric Branch protocol, only 32% of patients in the high risk group achieved long term remission. The present protocol is designed to improve survival in the high risk group by using alternating non-cross resistant drug regimens. We plan to determine whether using granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in this group would increase dose-intensity and ameliorate myelotoxicity. We also plan to study the effect on survival of decreasing the duration of treatment to three months from the present year-long therapy in low-risk patients.