Recent advances in post autologous transplantation maintenance therapies in B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas

Table 1 Studies evaluating the role of antibody based maintenance therapy post autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation in diffuse large B cell lymphoma

Ref.	Study design	Maintenance schedule	n	% CS at HCT	PFS/EFS (%)	OS (%)	Comments
Lim et al[21]	Retrospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (q 3 mo for a total of 8 doses)	15	100	-	80	Relapse free survival 100% (5.5 yr)
						(5.5 yr)
Zhang et al[22]	Single arm prospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (q 3 mo for 2 yr)	12	100	83	100	Prolonged hypogammaglobinemia in 2 patients
					(3 yr)	(3 yr)
Tsirigotis et al[23]	Retrospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (80% q wk and 20% q mo)	19	79	NR	NR	Compared to controls, maintenance improves PFS and OS
Haioun et al[24]	Randomized prospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (weekly for 4 doses)	269	84.5	80 (R) vs 71 (O)	-	Patients underwent autoHCT upfront in first remission
			R = 139, O = 130		(4 yr)
Gisselbrecht et al[25]	Randomized prospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (q 8 wk for 1 yr)	242	100	52 (R) vs 56 (O)	61 (R) vs 65 (O)	4 yr EFS was 52% for Rituximab arm while 53% for observation arm
			R = 122,		(4 yr)	(4 yr)
			O = 120
Armand et al[26]	Prospective phase II	Pidilizumab 1.5 mg/kg (q 42 d for 3 cycles)	66	91	72	85	ORR was 51% (CR of 34%) in pts with measurable disease after autoHCT
					(16 mo)	(16 mo)

CS: Chemo-sensitive; PFS: Progression free survival; OS: Overall survival; NR: Not reached; R: Rituximab arm; O: Observation arm; EFS: Event free survival; ORR: Overall response rate; CR: Complete remission; HCT: Hematopoietic cell transplantation.