[The COP-BLAM therapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in elderly patients]

COP-BLAM therapy, which has recently been reported to be useful in the treatment of malignant lymphoma, was performed on aged patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and the results and adverse effects of the treatment were evaluated. The subjects of the present study included 13 patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, aged 60 years or older, treated during the period from October, 1987 to June, 1989. They included four recurrent cases after CHOP therapy. According to the Ann-Arbor classification of pathological stage there were two patients in stage I, one in stage II, two stage III and eight in stage IV. COP-BLAM therapy was conducted using the following procedure, irrespective of the patient's age, intravenous drip infusion of cyclophosphamide (CPM) at a dose of 400 mg/m2 and intravenous infusion of 1 mg/m2 vincristine (VCR), and 30 mg/m2 adriamycin (ADM), on day 1; oral administration of 40 mg/m2 prednisone (PSL), and 100 mg/m2 procarbazine (PCZ), from day 1 through day 10, followed by intravenous infusion of bleomycin (BLM), 10 mg/body on day 14. BLM was withdrawn or decreased to less than 70% of the initial dose in patients who exhibited disturbed pulmonary function. Treatment resulted in complete remission (CR) in 11 and partial remission (PR) in 2 out of the 13 patients. Analyzing results according to pathological stage. CR was obtained in all of those in staged I and II, and eight out of the 10 in staged III and IV. The four patients with recurrent disease after CHOP therapy exhibited a CR rate of 50%, indicating that therapy is highly effective in recurrent cases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)