Treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) is the most common type of lymphoid malignancy that affects over 40000 people in North American alone. The difficulty associated with NHL is correctly assigning patients into homogenous histologic subtypes. Appropriate classification is of paramount importance because the multiple subgroups are associated with distinct clinical outcomes. Current anticancer therapy for this heterogenous disease includes chemotherapy, radiation, cytokine administration and dose-intensive myeloablative antineoplastic treatments followed by autologous bone marrow rescue. With the optimal management strategy, approximately 50% of patients with aggressive NHL can achieve prolonged disease-free survival and even clinical cures. This article will review current therapies for NHL, and discuss some recent advances in the clinical application of prognostic factors, cytokines and the role of transplantation.