Retreatment with rituximab offers a similar survival benefit as maintenance therapy in patients with low tumor burden follicular lymphoma.

TLDR: Together with colleagues from the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, RESORT study lead author Brad Kahl, MD, director of lymphoma service at the University ofWisconsin in Madison and clinical research director for hematologic malignancies at University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, recruited 408 previously untreated patients with low tumor burden follicular lymphoma.

Abstract: Together with colleagues from the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, RESORT study lead author Brad Kahl, MD, director of lymphoma service at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and clinical research director for hematologic malignancies at University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, recruited 408 previously untreated patients with low tumor burden follicular lymphoma. Patients with other low grade lymphomas were eligible, but were not reported in the current article. Low tumor burden was defined as no mass measuring greater than 7 cm, fewer than 3 masses measuring more than 3 cm, no systemic or B symptoms, no splenomegaly measuring greater than 16 cm, no organ compromise, no leukemic phase greater than 5000/mL circulating lymphocytes, and no cytopenias. All patients were treated with rituximab at a dose of 375 mg/m once a week for 4 weeks. Restaging was performed at 13 weeks and patients with stable or progressive disease were taken off the study. Patients with responding disease (289 patients) were randomized to observation with rituximab retreatment at the time of disease progression until treatment failure (143 patients) or scheduled maintenance rituximab of 1 dose every 13 weeks until treatment failure (146 patients). Retreatment consisted of weekly rituximab for another 4 weeks, which was repeated at each occurrence of progressive disease until treatment failure. Treatment failure was defined as no response to retreatment, time to disease progression of less than 26 weeks, initiation of alternate therapy, or inability to complete planned treatment. Treatment failure for patients on the maintenance arm was defined as any disease progression occurring between scheduled rituximab doses.