Prognostic significance of the Lukes and Collins classification in patient treated with COMLA

The Lukes and Collins classification was applied to 47 patients who received COMLA (cyclophosphamide, vincristine, methotrexate, leucovorin, and cytarabine) as initial treatment for diffuse histiocytic lymphoma (DHL). Pathologic staging was complete in 39 of 47 patients; two patients had stage IIE disease, 17 had stage III, and 28 had stage IV. Complete remission, which was documented by extensive clinical restaging, was achieved in 25 (64%) of 39 patients with morphologic B-cell lymphomas and in only three of eight patients with non-B-cell lymphomas. The medial duration of complete remission is significantly longer in patients with B-cell lymphomas than in those with non-B-cell lymphomas (45 + versus 13 months, P less than 0.01). Among patients with DHL, median survival is significantly longer for those with B-cell lymphomas than for those with lymphoma of T-cell or in determinate origin (60 + versus 6 months, P less than 0.01). While DHL is regarded as a curable disease, patients not achieving complete remission are rarely salvaged; median survival for these patients was 10 months. The Lukes and Collins classification allows us to identify patients with DHL in whom newer therapies are needed for initial treatment. Further study may enable us to identify additional unfavorable subsets in the B-cell category.