Gemcitabine as a single agent in the treatment of relapsed or refractory aggressive non Hodgkin's lymphoma

ABSTRACT

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of gemcitabine in the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma [NHL]. This prospective open-label nonrandomiied study included twenty patients with refractory or relapsed maggressive NHL between February 2001 and April 2004 seen at the department of Clinical Oncology, Alexandria University and El-Obour Insurance Hospital, Kafer El-Sheikh. Toxicities were recorded according to the WHO scoring. Patients were evaluated for complete response [CR], time to tumor progression for responders [TTP], and treatment toxicities. No complete response was observed, but only 25% of the patients achieved partial response [PR], 45% of them had stable disease and 30% had progressive disease. The median time to best response for the five patients [25%] was 2.5 months while the median time to progression for the responders was 6.5 months. At the end of follow up period [18 months] eight out of the 20 patients [40%] had died. Grade 3 anemia, leucopenia and thrombocytopenia developed in 10%, 15% and 35% respectively. Most of the chemotherapy non-hematologic toxicities were mild or moderate and manageable. Gemcitabine is effective salvage chemotherapy for patients with aggressive NHL. Most of the chemotherapy toxicities were mild or moderate and manageable. Thrombocytopenia was the main dose-limiting toxicity