Systemic and intraventricular chemotherapy with deferred radiotherapy for primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL): final report of a pilot and phase II study

Purpose: To evaluate response rate, response duration, overall survival, and toxicity in PCNSL after systemic and intraventricular chemotherapy with deferred radiotherapy. Patients and Methods: From 09/1995 to 04/2002, 88 consecutive patients with PCNSL (median age 62 years) were enrolled in a pilot/phase II study evaluating high-dose methotrexate (MTX) (cycles 1,2,4,5) and cytarabine (ara-C) (cycles 3,6) based systemic therapy (including dexamethasone, vinca-alkaloids, ifosfamide and cyclophosphamide) combined with intraventricular MTX, prednisolone and ara-C. Results: Seventy-three of 88 patients were evaluabl…