Retrospective evaluation of clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients with follicular lymphoma

INTRODUCTION: Follicular lymphoma is a indolent hematological malignancy, usually diagnosed in advanced stages and have no curative treatment option when detected at this stage. It is the second most common non-Hodgkin's lymphoma subtype after diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. There are some studies suggesting that the use of rituximab, an anti-cd-20 monoclonal antibody, in maintenance therapy improves the prognosis of the disease. In our study, we investigated the effects of additional therapy with rituximab and additional factors on treatment response and survival. AIMS & METHODS: The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of maintenance rituximab treatment in follicular lymphoma. The study included 91 patients with follicular lymphoma who were followed-up in our center. Age, gender, timing of diagnosis, grade, stage, B symptoms, biochemical parameters were evaluated. RESULTS: Patients with histological grade 1 of 88.9%, with grade 2 patients of 93%, with grade 3A patients of 63.2%, and with grade 3B patients of 40% had BCL-2 protein expression. Significant loss of BCL-2 expression was observed as the grade increased. It was statistically significant (p <0.001). BCL-6 expression was similar in grade 1, 2 and 3A (87.5%, 87.8%, 89.5%, respectively) but it is seen in all grade 3B patients. Success rate was 89.5% in patients who treated with maintanence rituximab therapy, and success was 55.6% with patients who did not received maintanance rituximab therapy. The positive effect of maintenance rituximab therapy on treatment response was statistically significant (p: 0.008). CONCLUSION: There is a statistically significant inverse relationship between BCL-2 protein expression and lymphoma histological grade. There was no statistically significant difference between the current first-line treatment regimens on treatment response. The treatment of selected patients with rituximab for 2 years of treatment positively affects the patients in treatment response. KEY WORDS: Rituximab; follicular lymphoma; maintenance treatment.