Journal Of Clinical Oncology (jco) Podcast

This JCO Podcast provides observations and commentary on the JCO article “Dose-Adjusted EPOCH-R Compared to R-CHOP as Frontline Therapy for Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma: Clinical Outcomes of the Phase III Intergroup Trial CALGB 50303 (Alliance)” by Bartlett et al. My name is Patrick Stiff, and I am Division Director of Hematology-Oncology at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Illinois. My oncologic specialty is hematologic malignancies and stem cell transplantation.     CHOP has remained the chemotherapy backbone of choice for the treatment of diffuse aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma since the 4 arm randomized SWOG study was performed 25 years ago1. Since then, only the addition of rituximab has improved patients' outcome2.   Investigators have tried to improve outcomes by employing other strategies like increasing drug intensity, shortening the interval between cycles, adding newer agents, changing the method of administration, and adding transplantation, but none clearly demonstrated a