Clinical study on EPOCH regimen in the treatment of elderly patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma / 白血病·淋巴瘤

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy and toxicity of EPOCH regimen in the treatment of elderly patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Methods Twenty-eight elderly patients with pathologically diagnosed peripheral T-cell lymphoma were treated with EPOCH regimen, including 96-hour continuous infusion of etoposide 50 mg/m2, epirubincin 12 mg/m2 and vincristin 0.4 mg/m2 on daysl through 4,cyclophosphamide 750 mg/m2 given as intravenous bolus on day 5 and prednisone 60 mg/m2 administered orally on daysl through 5. The EPOCH regimen was repeated very 21 days. Clinical efficacy and safety profiles of EPOCH regimen was systemically reviewed and analysed. Results All the 28 patients received a total of 85 cycles of EPOCH regimen. The median cycles was two courses. Fifteen patients achieved complete response, while five cases obtaining partial response. The overall response rate was 71.4 %. The median survival time was 20 months. In newly diagnosed patients, complete response rate (CR) as well as partial response (PR) and overall response rate (OR) reached 64.7 %, 23.5 % and 88.2 %, respectively, which was significantly higher than that in refractory cases, whose CR, PR and OR were 36.4 %, 9.1% and 45.5 %(λ 2 = 5.99, P ＜0.05). In addition, the median survivalduration of newly diagnosed patients was longer than that of refractory cases, whose median survival time was 24 and 13 months, respectively. The major adverse events was myelosuppression with grade 3-4 neutropenia and thrombocytopenia in 53.6 % and 50.0 % cases.Non-hematologic toxicities were moderate and uncommon. The frequency of adverse effects in de novo patients showed little difference in comparison with that in refractory ones (P＞0.05). Conclusion EPOCH regimen was an effective and well tolerated therapeutic schedule for elderly patients with peripheral T-cell lymphoma.