FLUDAP: Salvage Chemotherapy for Relapsed/Refractory Aggressive Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

The aim of this study was to investigate the combination of fludarabine phosphate, dexamethasone, cytosine arabinoside and cis-platinum (FLUDAP) in the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). This regimen comprises: dexamethasone 100mg/d continuous infusion (cont. inf.) d1-3; cytosine arabinoside (ara-C) 1g/m2/d cont. inf. d2,3; fludarabine phosphate 30mg/m2 short inf. 4hr prior to each 24hr ara-C inf.; cis-platinum 50mg/m2 4hr inf. at the start of each 24hr ara-C inf. G-CSF (lenograstim, Granocyte®) is given at 263 μg s.c. daily from day 7 until the neutrophil count reaches 1.0×109/1. The regimen repeats at 21 day intervals. A total of 33 patients were registered (median age 47 years; 24 males, 9 females); the majority (73%) were refractory to their previous treatment and most had advanced disease by Ann Arbor stage. Thirteen (39%) of the 33 enrolled patients (52% of the 25 fully evaluable patients who received at least 2 courses of FLUDAP) responded to tre...