Prolonged low intensity EPOCH-rituximab has improved toxicity in Burkitt lymphoma compared with standard short, high intensity therapy.

Burkitt lymphoma is an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that has a short doubling time, thus intense short-cycle chemotherapy has been thought to be essential. A recent NCI-sponsored clinical trial investigated DA-EPOCH-R given to 19 HIV-negative patients and a short course regimen (SC-EPOCH-RR) given to 11 HIV-positive patients in hopes of maintaining the efficacy of the regimen while decreasing the typical side effects from the intensive short-cycle chemotherapy. Low intensity EPOCH-R based therapy achieved excellent rates of efficacy despite a significant difference in the median cumulative dose between the DA-EPOCH-R and SC-EPOCH-RR cohorts. Furthermore, both cohorts experienced mainly grade 1 and grade 2 toxicities, with SC-EPOCH-RR cohort patients experiencing less adverse events than DA-EPOCH-R cohort patients. This recent clinical investigation suggests the most important therapeutic principle is not the intensity but rather the length of exposure time above an effective threshold concentration. Since short, intense bolus doses are the standard therapy for Burkitt lymphoma, these findings are clinically relevant and significant.