Análisis comparativo de 3 regímenes de tratamiento en niños con linfoma de Burkitt

Abstract

Between January 1980 and June 1996, a total of 86 patients with Burkitt’s lymphoma were treated at our institution. The current study is a retrospective review of how these patients evolved comparing the complications, overall and disease-free survival rates using 3 different treatment regimens.Forty-six patients were treated with regimen 1, 26 with regimen 2 and 14 with regimen 3. The following variables were analyzed: age and sex of the population, laboratory and X-ray results (blood chemistry, lactic dehydrogenase, bone marrow aspirate, cerebral spinal fluid, cytology, imaging studies of the primary tumor), the stage of the disease, the chemotherapeutic regimen received, the complications experienced, overall and disease-free survival rates, causes of death and prognostic factors.The patients median age was of 72 months. A total of 63 patients (73%) had advanced stage (III–IV) and the remaining 23 early stages (I–II). There was and overall survival rate of 63.9% for all stages and a overall disease-free survival rate of 54.5%. No statistical difference when overall survival comparison was made between regimens 1 (51%) and 2 (72%) (p=0.13). A difference was observed when regimen 1 was compared to regimen 3 (86%) (p=0.025). The overall survival comparison among the three treatment regimens had a p value of 0.06. All of the patients that remained in full remission beyond 18 months are alive and without evidence of disease regardless of the stage and treatment regimen.Intensive, short chemotherapy regimen appears to be a superior regimen when compared to other regimens. Regimen 3 offers a relatively low morbidity and the highest disease free survival of the three regimens studied.