Specific Intensive Chemotherapy Plus Rituximab for Advanced Burkitt'S Lymphoma or Leukemia in Hiv-Positive and Negative Adult Patients

A previous PETHEMA protocol (PETHEMA ALL3/97) proved that HIV-positive patients with Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) and Burkitt-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL3) had similar outcome than HIV-negative patients (Haematologica 2003; 88:445–53). We aimed to study the impact of the addition of rituximab to our previous protocol in terms of toxicity and efficacy, with special attention to HIV-positive patients. Consecutive patients between 18 and 55 years and diagnosed with advanced stage (stage III-IV or bulky stage II) BL/ALL3 between July 2003 and August 2006 received induction therapy including a pre-phase with cyclophosphamide (CPM) and prednisone (PDN), followed by cycle A (rituximab, iphosphamide, VCR, dexamethasone -DXM-, HD-MTX, ARA-C and VM-26), cycle B (rituximab, VCR, HD-MTX, CPM, DXM and doxorubicin) an cycle C (rituximab, DXM, VDN, HD-MTX, HD-ARAC and VP-16) up to six cycles (A1,B1,C1,A2,B2,C2) followed by two additional rituximab doses. CNS prophylaxis consisted of IT MTX+ARA-C+DXM given twice in cycles A and once in cycles B for a total of 8 doses.