Radiotherapy with rituximab may be better than radiotherapy alone in first-line treatment of early-stage follicular lymphoma: is it time to change the standard strategy?
Early-stage follicular lymphoma (FL) has traditionally been treated with involved-field radiotherapy (RT). Rituximab (R) is a low-toxic, efficient systemic therapy for FL, but there are no data about its clinical impact in early FL. We retrospectively analyzed 93 patients with stage I-II indolent FL treated with RT (n=65) or RT+R (n=14) or R alone (n=14). Median follow-up was 5.0 years for patients with RT, 2.8 years for the RT+R subgroup and 2.5 years for patients treated with R. The complete response rate was 92%, 100% and 86% (not significant) and the median PFS was 3.3 years, not reached and 4.9 years (p=0.035) for the RT, RT+R and R arms, with no impact on overall survival. R combined with RT seems to give better results in terms of global FL control, but longer follow-up and prospective comparison are needed to verify these results.
['Janikova|Andrea|A|', 'Bortlicek|Zbynek|Z|', 'Campr|Vit|V|', 'Kopalova|Natasa|N|', 'Benesova|Katerina|K|', 'Belada|David|D|', 'Prochazka|Vit|V|', 'Pytlik|Robert|R|', 'Vokurka|Samuel|S|', 'Pirnos|Jan|J|', 'Duras|Juraj|J|', 'Mocikova|Heidi|H|', 'Mayer|Jiri|J|', 'Trneny|Marek|M|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D000970:Antineoplastic Agents D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols D059248:Chemoradiotherapy D003131:Combined Modality Therapy D018153:Czech Republic D016208:Databases, Factual D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008224:Lymphoma, Follicular D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D009026:Mortality D009367:Neoplasm Staging D011878:Radiotherapy D000069283:Rituximab D059039:Standard of Care D016896:Treatment Outcome
radiotherapy rituximab Follicular lymphoma