New treatment method may benefit lymphoma patients in developing world

Washington, July 7 : Patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the developing world might benefit from a modified chemotherapy regimen, according to preliminary results of a study.

Lead author Prof. Hamdy Azim and his colleagues from Cairo University found that giving these patients chemotherapy every 2 weeks, rather than every 3 weeks as usual, improved treatment outcomes.

The standard regimen in this case is called CHOP (chemotherapy regime), which is given every 3 weeks.

In the developed world, CHOP is administered in combination with an antibody therapy called rituximab.

However, many patients in developing countries, including Egypt where this study was conducted, cannot afford this treatment, so they are offered CHOP alone.

"We hypothesized that if CHOP or a CHOP-like regimen was given every two weeks instead of three, a superior outcome could be achieved," said Dr. Hatem A. Azim Jr.

In order to see if this was the case, researchers analyzed five trials that compared CHOP to regimens given every two weeks.

Using two statistical analyses, they showed that regimens every two weeks had superior response rate, disease-free and overall survival; however in one method, the response rate analysis did not reach statistical significance.

"We believe that this work could provide good evidence to support the use of the 2-weekly regimen," Dr. Azim Jr said.

He noted that one issue that remains to be assessed is how well patients tolerate the more intense treatment.

"Patients on the 2-weekly regimens have to receive injections with 'growth factors' to ensure that severe toxicities to the white blood cells do not occur," he said.

"Even so, the cost of these injections per cycle is much lower than that of rituximab. The preliminary results are encouraging in providing patients who cannot afford the cost of rituximab, a better alternative than CHOP," he added.

The study was presented at ESMO Conference Lugano (ECLU) organized by the European Society for Medical Oncology.

ANI