Chemotherapy of primary central nervous system lymphoma

Effective treatment in primary central nervous system lymphoma remains elusive. Usually high dose methotrexate and/or cytosine arabinoside may improve survival. We report the results of multimodality therapy in 248 patients (SFNC series). The addition of chemotherapy to radiation therapy and high dose methotrexate increased the duration of survival. We demonstrate that the use of anthracyclines in addition to radiation therapy had a significantly favorable impact on survival which is not reported in the Literature. Survival was not longer in patients receiving intrathecal chemotherapy. The efficacy of chemotherapy alone has not been clearly defined.