RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug and giving the drugs in different ways may kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of oral combination chemotherapy and G-CSF in 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.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Biopsy proven stage I through IV intermediate to high grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma of B-cell, T-cell, or indeterminate immunologic phenotype
• Measurable or evaluable
• No cytologic or radiographic evidence of CNS lymphoma

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 60 and over

Performance status:

• ECOG 0-3

Life expectancy:

• At least 6 weeks

Hematopoietic:

• WBC at least 1500/mm3
• Platelet count at least 50,000/mm3

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin no greater than 3.0 mg/dL

Renal:

• Creatinine no greater than 3.0 mg/dL

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• Not specified

Chemotherapy:

• No prior chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy:

• Not specified

Radiotherapy:

• Prior radiotherapy allowed for localized stage I or II disease that has progressed beyond initial radiotherapy ports

Surgery:

• Not specified