Journal of Blood Disorders & Transfusion

Rituximab maintenance in follicular lymphoma

4^th International Conference on Blood Malignancies & Treatment

April 18-19, 2016 Dubai, UAE

Slobodanka Ostojic Kolonic

Clinical Hospital Merkur, Croatia

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Blood Disord Transfus

Abstract:

Follicular lymphoma is an indolent B-cell malignancy which represents 15 to 20% of newly diagnosed non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Therapeutic options for patients with untreated FL include observation for asymptomatic and low tumor burden and multiagent chemotherapy for symptomatic and high tumor burden patients. Despite slow growth and high initial response rate, many patients experience disease progression and relapse. Rituximab has significantly improved the outcomes of patients with B-cell lymphomas, as well as in patients with advanced FL. Results of randomized studies have shown that the combination of the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody rituximab with various chemotherapy regimens, can improve patients' overall survival and progression free survival. Maintenance therapy with rituximab in patients with any previous induction therapy improves progression free survival and statistically significant survival benefit for patients with advanced disease. There have been several reports that demonstrated similar benefits for FL patients who received rituximab maintenance every 2 or every 3 months for 2 years. Most of patients had beneficial effect by prolonging response duration in first remission and in case of recurrent disease. In low tumor burden FL patients, there have been no survival benefit and no changing the natural course of disease if rituximab was given as an induction therapy. In conclusion, maintenance therapy with rituximab is efficacious in advanced stage FL patients, with significant benefit in PFS and OS.

Biography :

Slobodanka Ostojic Kolonic is a Professor of Internal Medicine at the School of Medicine of University of Zagreb, Croatia. She is an attending physician in Internal Medicine and Hematology at Clinical Hospital Merkur and Head of the Internal Medicine Department since 2011. She is the President of the myelodysplastic syndrome working group as part of Croatian Cooperative Group for Hematologic Diseases (KROHEM). Her research and interest is focused on lymphoproliferative disorders, myelodysplastic syndrome, chronic leukemias and multiple myeloma. She has given numerous invited lectures at domestic and international meetings, has authored many scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, and the author of several chapters in internal medicine, pharmacology and oncology medical textbooks.

Email: ostojic@net.hr