Current Therapeutic Approaches to Patients With Newly Diagnosed Low-Grade Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

Follicular lymphoma, the most common type of low-grade non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), is conventionally considered incurable. However, recent treatment advances have demonstrated significant improvements in long-term progression-free and overall survival. In particular, rituximab has demonstrated impressive efficacy in follicular lymphoma, with a single dosing cycle resulting in an 80% overall response rate when used as initial therapy. Rituximab has also shown activity within maintenance regimens, following both rituximab induction and chemotherapy induction, although significant long-term benefit compared to re-treatment upon relapse has not yet been demonstrated. A newer treatment modality, radioimmunotherapy, is also effective in prolonging progression-free survival in follicular lymphoma patients, and it is being actively compared to rituximab in phase III clinical trials. Overall, only 5% of follicular lymphoma patients are estimated to participate in clinical trials, suggesting that trial enrollment should be increased to improve patient outcomes using the therapies discussed herein.