Durable benefit of rituximab maintenance post-autograft in patients with relapsed follicular lymphoma: 12-year follow-up of the EBMT lymphoma working party Lym1 trial

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • R. Pettengell
  • R. Uddin
  • A. Boumendil
  • R. Johnson
  • B. Metzner
  • A. Martín
  • J. Romejko-Jarosinska
  • I. Bence-Bruckler
  • P. Giri
  • Niemann, Carsten
  • S. P. Robinson
  • E. Kimby
  • N. Schmitz
  • P. Dreger
  • A. H. Goldstone
  • S. Montoto

We report the 12-year follow-up of the prospective randomized EBMT LYM1 trial to determine whether the benefit of brief duration rituximab maintenance (RM) on progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with relapsed follicular lymphoma (FL) receiving an autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) is sustained. One hundred and thirty-eight patients received RM with or without purging. The median follow-up after random assignment is 12 years (range 10–13) for the whole series. The 10-year PFS after ASCT is 47% (95% CI 40–54) with only 4 patients relapsing after 7.5 years. RM continues to significantly improve 10-year PFS after ASCT in comparison with NM [P = 0.002; HR 0.548 (95% CI 0.38–0.80)]. Ten-year non-relapse mortality (NRM) was not significantly different between treatment groups (7% overall). 10-year overall survival (OS) after ASCT was 75% (69–81) for the whole series, with no significant differences according to treatment sub-groups. 10-year OS for patients who progressed within 24 months (POD24T) was 60%, in comparison with 85% for patients without progression. Thus the benefit of rituximab maintenance after ASCT on relapse prevention is sustained at 12 years, suggesting that RM adds to ASCT-mediated disease eradication and may enhance the curative potential of ASCT.

Original languageEnglish
JournalBone Marrow Transplantation
Volume56
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)1413-1421
Number of pages9
ISSN0268-3369
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

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© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

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