Abstract: Objective To investigate the relationship between DNA repair rate（DRR） of peripheral blood lymphocyte（PBLC） and the efficacy of combination chemotherapy containing alkylating agents for NHL patients. Methods The DRRs of PBLC in 30 patients with NHL and 20 controls without cancer were detected by single cell gel electrophoresis（SCGE）. The NHL patients received chemotherapy including cyclophosphamide and the efficacy was evaluated after four cycles. In both groups， the DRRs before cyclophosphamide exposure and after exposure followed by restoration were analyzed. The correlation between the DRR of NHL group and the clinicopathological features as well as the efficacy of combined chemotherapy containing alkylating agents was investigated. Results DRRs of the NHL patients were obviously lower than the controls by tail length（Z=4.464， P=0.000） and tail moment（Z=3.828，P=0.000）. The DRRs have no relationship with age，gender，ECOG score，clinical stage，LDH value，Ki-67 proliferation index and drinking habits（P>0.05）. As for 30 NHL patients，there were CR in 4 cases， PR in 14 cases， SD in 10 cases and PD in 2 cases with response rate of 60.0% and disease control rate of 93.3%. To evaluate DRRs with tail length（r=-0.409，P=0.025），it showed that DRRs were negatively correlated with the efficacy of chemotherapy. In addition，no relationship was found between DRRs and efficacy by tail moment（r=-0.224，P=0.234）. Conclusion NHL patients have lower DNA repair capacity than people without cancer. The DRR in PBLCs is correlated negatively with the efficacy of NHL patients treated with alkylating agents.