Treatment Options for Newly Diagnosed Follicular Lymphoma

Mark J. Roschewski, MD, a senior clinician and the clinical director of the Lymphoid Malignancies Branch of the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute, discusses standard of care options for the treatment of follicular lymphoma.

According to Roschewski, there are several options for a patient with newly diagnosed follicular lymphoma. One option is to actually ‘watch and wait’ until the patient needs therapy. If the patient is at the point where therapy is needed, the most common option is chemotherapy or a combination chemotherapy such as rituximab (Rituxan), cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin hydrochloride (doxorubicin hydrochloride), vincristine (Oncovin) and prednisone (R-CHOP). Another option is bendamustine in combination with rituximab. 

Additionally, according to Roschewski, rituximab can be used with lenalidomide (Revlimid). Rituximab and lenalidomide can also be given as monotherapy. 

0:08 | [The] first thing that happens after diagnosis is one has to make a decision if they need treatment or not. So, one management strategy actually is to do 'watch and wait' until you think a patient has gotten to the point where they need treatment. So, all the patients on this study will have met that criteria. They either have some symptoms or their diseases is threatening an organ system. And then when you need treatment, the most common thing to do would be to give chemotherapy, combination chemotherapy, such as R-CHOP or bendamustine/rituximab. Or another good option is lenalidomide {Revlimid] with rituximab. And a fourth option would be to give rituximab or lenalidomide by itself. So, there's a lot of different options.