Novel treatment strategies in follicular lymphoma.

Malignant lymphomas are a heterogenous group of malignancies, belonging to the 10 most frequent types of cancers worldwide. In indolent lymphoma only patients with limited stage I/II (Ann Arbor) can be potentially cured by local irradiation. However, about 85% of cases present with advanced stage; for these patients no established therapeutic strategy with curative potential exist. The development of the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody rituximab has been one of the major contributions in the field of anti-lymphoma treatment in the recent years. Various clinical trials have suggested the combination of chemotherapy and rituximab to be highly effective in de novo as well as relapsed indolent lymphomas.