A trial looking at 2 years of treatment with rituximab for follicular lymphoma

The trial team found that having rituximab for 2 years helped people with follicular lymphoma who had already responded to a combination of chemotherapy and rituximab.

The trial recruited 1,217 people in a number of different countries. Their average age was 56.

Most people taking part had CHOP chemotherapy with rituximab as their first line treatment . But some people had other types of chemotherapy with rituximab.

Of the 1,018 people who had a response to their first treatment,

• 505 then had rituximab once every 8 weeks for 2 years
• 513 didn’t have any further treatment

The researchers monitored the progress of people in both groups for an average of just over 2 years. They found that the number of people living with no signs of their lymphoma having got worse was

• 82% in the group who had rituximab
• 66% in the group who did not have any further treatment

The most common side effect of maintenance rituximab was infection. So far, the results don’t show whether maintenance rituximab helps people to live longer. But the researchers suggest that as it helped people, without causing too many side effects, it should become part of standard treatment for follicular lymphoma.

We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the trial. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed ) but may not have been published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.