Rituximab maintenance in follicular lymphoma patients

Rituximab maintenance (RM) therapy following successful induction has recently emerged as a highly effective treatment for follicular lymphoma (FL). Randomized trials analyzing the impact of RM compared to observation alone have demonstrated a significantly better outcome in terms of progression-free survival (but not overall survival) in patients (pts) who received as first-line treatment single-agent rituximab, standard chemotherapy (CVP) and recently also immunochemotherapy (R-CHOP, R-CVP or R-FND), as shown by preliminary results of the PRIMA trial. Also in the setting of relapsed disease, RM has shown significant benefit either after chemotherapy or immunochemotherapy. RM has been generally well tolerated, and treated pts developed only mild toxicity, mainly a small increased rate of neutropenia, hypogammaglobulinaemia and self-limiting upper-respiratory tract infections. Moreover, no cumulative or unexpected toxicities were observed and quality of life was not affected. These data have established RM therapy as an important part of multi-modal therapeutic strategies in patients affected by FL.