$re = '`^(?:[A-Z]+//){2}[A-Z]+\K//`m';
$str = 'ABC//DEG//IJK//LMN//OPQ//rstuvwxyz
BCA//EGD//JKI//MNL//PQO//stuvwxyzr
ACB//DGE//IJK//LNM//OQP//rstuvwxyz
ABC//DEG//IJK//LMN//OPQ//rstuvwxyz
CAB//GDE//KIJ//NLM//QOP//rstuvwxyz
BAC//EDG//JIK//MLN//POQ//rstuvwxyz';
$subst = "\\\\";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php