Trial of Vorinostat in Combination With Cyclophosphamide, Etoposide, Prednisone and Rituximab for Elderly Patients With Relapsed Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL)

The purpose of this study is to replace a drug with many side effects, procarbazine, with a new novel drug, vorinostat, in a drug combination for the treatment of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Vorinostat is the first of a new type of chemotherapy drug, known as a histone deacetylase inhibitor, to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It is approved for the treatment of certain lymphomas of the skin. It alters the cancer cell pathway by preventing cancer cells from reproducing. Vorinostat will be added to a combination of four other effective chemotherapy drugs that have been used for many years for the treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: rituximab, cyclophosphamide, etoposide and prednisone. The doses of vorinostat will be increased or decreased depending on the side effects that occur in each of the first few patients in the trial to find the safest dose with the least side effects. This is termed the phase I part of the clinical trial. Once the best dose of vorinostat is found, the rest of the patients in the clinical trial will be treated with this dose. This is termed the phase II part of the trial. The object of the trial is to find out what effects, good and/or bad, the combination of vorinostat, rituximab, cyclophosphamide, etoposide and prednisone will have on you and your lymphoma.