Bendamustine: role and evidence in lymphoma therapy, an overview

Bendamustine is a bifunctional molecule with both alkylating and antimetabolite properties, synthesized in 1963 by Ozegowski and Krebs in East Germany (German Democratic Republic). Widely used in Eastern Europe for lymphoma and myeloma therapy during the 1970s and 1980s, bendamustine was not studied in well-designed clinical trials until the 2000s. Unique among other recently developed antineoplastic drugs, bendamustine shows high activity and is now approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), being part of the therapeutic armamentarium in indolent and aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and multiple myeloma (MM). "Bendamustine: role and clinical evidence in lymphoma therapy" is the title of a workshop which took place in Bologna, Italy, on 28 January 2013. This meeting focused on the development, mechanisms of action and evidence supporting the use of bendamustine in lymphoma therapy. This report summarizes the drug development steps, mechanisms of action, clinical results and rationale of use of bendamustine in different lymphoma subtypes, as discussed during the meeting, with the aim of helping the clinician regarding optimal use of this compound in a wide spectrum of lymphoproliferative disorders.