Rituximab, cyclophosphamide-fractionated, vincristine, doxorubicin and dexamethasone alternating with rituximab, methotrexate and cytarabine overcomes risk features associated with inferior outcomes in treatment of newly diagnosed, high-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Subtypes of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) that have inferior outcomes after front-line therapy with R-CHOP (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone) have been identified. While it is agreed that R-CHOP is probably not adequate in these patients, there is no standard treatment approach for patients with DLBCL with high-risk features. We present results of a retrospective cohort study of high-risk DLBCL (defined as having at least one unfavorable risk factor: non-germinal center [GC] subtype by immunohistochemistry [IHC], Ki-67 ≥ 80%, high International Prognostic Index [IPI], c-MYC rearrangement) treated with R-HCVAD/R-MTX-AraC (rituximab, cyclophosphamide-fractionated, vincristine, doxorubicin and dexamethasone alternating with rituximab, methotrexate and cytarabine; R-HCVAD) as front-line therapy. With a median follow-up of 25.3 months, the 3-year PFS and OS estimates are 79% (95% confidence interval [CI], 65-88%) and 76% (95% CI, 61-86%), respectively, which are higher than those for historical comparisons with R-CHOP data for high-risk patients. These data are in accord with other recent reports of dose-intense front-line therapy of high-risk DLBCL. This analysis represents the largest reported cohort of patients with DLBCL treated with R-HCVAD. These data suggest that R-HCVAD can overcome traditional poor risk features such as high IPI, high Ki-67 and non-GC IHC pattern. Future work will focus on identifying molecular markers for failure in patients with DLBCL treated with dose-intensive regimens.