ABSTRACT
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a heterogeneous group of B- and T-cell cancers, with a large variety of patterns of growth, clinical presentations, and responses to treatment. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a B-cell chronic proliferation not very different from the small lymphocytic lymphoma, and both diseases are often treated identically. The overall response rate for the 34 patients with indolent lymphoma was 82%. International Extranodal Lymphoma Study Group trial randomizes chlorambucil versus chlorambucil plus rituximab in new or relapsing patients with mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. Rituximab has been used as an in vivo purging agent before and as maintenance therapy after ASCT, in follicular and mantle cell lymphoma and in aggressive lymphoma in first-line or in relapse patients, with promising results. Rituximab was the first monoclonal antibody registered in the treatment of lymphomas and it has allowed one of the major progresses for the treatment of lymphoma patients.
