follicular lymphoma | FOLLICULAR LYMPHOMA: LONG-TERM RITUXIMAB MAINTENANCE EFFICIENT AFTER TEN YEARS OF FOLLOW-UP

FOLLICULAR LYMPHOMA: LONG-TERM RITUXIMAB MAINTENANCE EFFICIENT AFTER TEN YEARS OF FOLLOW-UP


A patient on two displays a progression-free survival after 10 years
Can we still say that there is no cure for follicular Lymphoma?


The benefit of maintenance treatment with rituximab in patients with follicular Lymphoma persists after 10 years of follow-up, resulting in a reduction of 39% of the risk of death or progression and a 51% progression-free survival rate, either a pat PRIMA customer on two, based on ten years of the study.
These results were presented on 10 December at the Congress of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in Atlanta. The study PRIMA (Primary RItuximab and Maintenance), led by LYSA (The Lymphoma Study Association), was conducted in 223 centres in 25 countries.

In this study, patients who responded to induction by rituximab therapy after chemotherapy had undergone maintenance rituximab for two years. In 2010, the first results had allowed to highlight a risk of progression, divided by two.

The new results, which showed no new toxicity of maintenance therapy, indicate that the median time before growth amounts to 10.5 years in the group that received two years to against 4 years rituximab maintenance therapy in the Group without maintenance therapy.

However, the overall survival rate was no different between the two groups (80%).

"These findings also show a 30% reduction in the risk of having to undergo a new treatment. So they are extremely significant in terms of quality of life for patients, and even if there is no benefit in terms of overall survival, they demonstrate that there is a benefit for patients to receive treatment with rituximab,"says Pr Gilles rooms, Chief of service in Clinical Hematology the hospices civilians of Lyon (hospital Lyon-South Central) and president of the LYSA.

Always incurable follicular Lymphoma?
So far, follicular Lymphoma was widely regarded as incurable by the medical community as a whole.

"Doctors now have a new therapeutic arsenal that helps to push back the frontier of the remission period, with an improved quality of life for patients. When a patient on two who received an immunochimiotherapie of induction then an interview with rituximab did not relapse after a decade, can we still say that there is no cure for follicular Lymphoma? ", asks in conclusion the Pr Gilles rooms.