Oral Combination Chemotherapy in Treating Elderly Patients With Intermediate or High-Grade Non-Hodgkin's Lymphomas

OBJECTIVES: * Assess the feasibility and toxicity of oral combination chemotherapy with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor in elderly patients with intermediate and high grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. * Determine the objective response rate, response duration, and survival in this patient population. OUTLINE: All patients receive one cycle of oral chemotherapy, 6 weeks in duration. Etoposide is given on days 1-3 and cyclophosphamide and procarbazine are given on days 22-31 of each cycle. Lomustine is given on day 1 of cycles 1 and 3 only. Filgrastim (granulocyte colony-stimulating factor; G-CSF) is given subcutaneously on days 5-21 and 33-42 of each cycle. Patients who have disease progression after one cycle of therapy or at any time thereafter are taken off the study. Patients with a complete response after 1 cycle of therapy receive 2 additional cycles of chemotherapy and are observed off treatment. Patients with a partial response (PR) also receive 2 additional cycles of chemotherapy. Following the third cycle of chemotherapy, if residual disease is confined to 1 or 2 nodal sites, patients receive radiation therapy. All other patients with a PR are treated at investigator's discretion. Patients are followed every 3 months until death. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A maximum of 32 patients will be accrued for this study.