Last Modified: 09/01/2011
Changes to This Summary (09/01/2011)
The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.
Added text 2 to state that in a prospective randomized trial of 551 immunocompetent patients with newly diagnosed primary central nervous system lymphoma, all patients received induction chemotherapy with six cycles of high-dose methotrexate with or without ifosfamide. Also added that upon completion of chemotherapy, responders were randomly assigned to whole-brain radiation therapy or to no treatment for complete response patients and cytarabine for partial response patients. Additionally, the text stated that there was no statistical difference in median overall survival with 32.4 months for patients receiving radiation therapy versus 37.1 months for those not receiving radiation (cited Thiel et al. as reference 39 and level of evidence 1iiiA). Treatment-related neurotoxicity was significantly worse on the radiation therapy arm, and such toxicity must be weighed against the possibility that the survival from chemotherapy alone may be marginally inferior to the survival when radiation is added.