A RANDOMIZED COMPARISON OF A 3RD-GENERATION REGIMEN (PACEBOM) WITH A STANDARD REGIMEN (CHOP) IN PATIENTS WITH HISTOLOGICALLY AGGRESSIVE NON-HODGKINS-LYMPHOMA - A BRITISH NATIONAL LYMPHOMA INVESTIGATION REPORT

A combination of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin; vincristine and predni solone (CHOP) has been a standard therapy for histologically aggressiv e non-Hodgkin's lymphomas for over 20 years, but several newer regimen s, referred to as second or third generation, have been reported to gi ve improved results in single-centre studies. Positive evidence from r andomised trials has been lacking, and the British National Lymphoma I nvestigation therefore commenced a randomised comparison of CHOP vs a third-generation regimen, PACEBOM, in November 1987. A total of 459 el igible patients were entered into the trial: 226 in the CHOP arm and 2 33 in the PACEBOM arm. Overall, there was no significant difference in outcome between the two arms of the trial. In patients with stage IV disease there was an apparent improvement in survival for those treate d with PACEBOM, but considerable caution must be exercised with such s ubgroup analysis.