Epirubicin is a doxorubicin analogue presenting a high degree of activity against experimental animal tumors as well as human tumors. We conducted a clinical trial of epirubicin in treating patients with hematological malignancy. Five patients with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were treated by CEVP. One patient of relapsed Hodgkin's disease was treated by EBV. One patient with relapsed ALL was treated by EVP. Five of the 7 patients had complete remission (71.4%) after treatment. Two patients had partial remission. One patient had no response to treatment at all. The major side effects were alopesia, bone marrow suppression and mild degree of vomiting. No cardiac toxicity was found in any case.