Rituximab maintenance versus radio-immunotherapy consolidation in first remission follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma

摘要

Some of the ingredients of the battle between "cold" and "hot" antibodies in first remission follicular NHL or -to be more precise - Rituximab-maintenance for a prolonged period of time versus a single infusion of a radio-labelled anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody will be presented below. Only a few large randomized trials with newly diagnosed patients with follicular NHL have been reported recently. As regards the current topic the comparative evaluation of the ECOG 1496 study and the FIT trial seems to be most appropriate. In the ECOG study, newly diagnosed patients with indolent (mainly follicular) lymphoma were induced with CVP and responders were subsequently randomized between R-maintenance, once per week for 4 weeks every 6 months x4 [1]; in the FIT trial various chemo-induction regimens were allowed after which PR and CR patients were randomized between one infusion of Zevalin versus no further treatment [2].