Interferon Alfa plus Chemotherapy for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma: Five-Year Follow-up

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Abstract
As we previously reported (November 5, 1992, issue),1 interferon alfa, when added to a four-drug, doxorubicin-based chemotherapy regimen, is an effective antitumor agent in patients with clinically aggressive low-grade or intermediate-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. This study has now reached a median follow-up period for survival of 5.25 years. At five years, 81 percent of the patients assigned to a regimen of cyclophosphamide, vincristine, prednisone, and doxorubicin (COPA) and 66 percent of those assigned to this regimen plus interferon alfa (I-COPA) had disease progression. The time to treatment failure continues to be significantly prolonged (P = 0.0013) by the addition of interferon to the COPA regimen. Slightly more than one third of the patients have died -- 60 of 127 in the COPA group and 48 of 122 in the I-COPA group. Although the patients in the I-COPA group have continued to live slightly longer than those in the COPA group, there is no statistically significant difference between the groups' survival curves ( Figure 1 ). Thus, interferon added to induction chemotherapy for patients with low-grade or intermediate-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma prolongs the time to treatment failure, but its effect on overall survival, if any, is not significant.

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