• Age: 61-80 years

• All risk groups (IPI 1-5)

• Diagnosis of aggressive CD20+ B-NHL, based on an excisional biopsy of a lymph node or on an appropriate sample of a lymph node or of an extranodal involvement. It will be possible to treat the following entities in this study as defined by the new WHO classification of 200870:

• B-NHL:

⁃ Foll. lymphoma grade IIIb

⁃ DLBCL, not otherwise specified (NOS)

∙ common morphologic variants:

⁃ centroblastic

• immunoblastic

• anaplastic

‣ rare morphologic variants

⁃ DLBCL subtypes/entities:

∙ T-cell/histiocyte-rich large B-cell lymphoma

‣ primary cutaneous DLBCL, leg type

‣ EBV-pos. DLBCL of the elderly

⁃ DLBCL associated with chronic inflammation

⁃ primary mediastinal (thymic) LBCL

⁃ intravascular large B-cell-lymphoma

⁃ ALK-positive large B-cell-lymphoma

⁃ plasmoblastic lymphoma

⁃ primary effusion lymphoma

⁃ transformed indolent lymphoma secondary or simultaneous high grade B-cell-lymphoma

⁃ B-cell lymphoma, unclassifiable, with features intermediate between DLBCL and Burkitt lymphoma

⁃ B-cell lymphoma, unclassifiable, with features intermediate between DLCBL and Hodgkin lymphoma

• Performance status ECOG 0 - 2 after prephase treatment. The performance status of each patient must be assessed before the initiation and after the end of prephase treatment which, as experience has shown, can result in a significant improvement of the patient's performance status. The pre-treatment performance status which can range from ECOG 0 to ECOG 4 must be documented in the Staging CRF (see ISF); the performance status after the prephase treatment must be documented in the respective Prephase Treatment CRF (PT form: see ISF). A definition of the performance status is provided in Appendix 28.10.

• Written informed consent of the patient

• Contract of participation signed by the study centre and sponsor