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

Table 2 Studies evaluating the role of rituximab maintenance after autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation in mantle cell lymphoma

Ref.	Design	Maintenance	n	% CS at HCT	PFS/EFS (%)	OS (%)	Comments
Lim et al[46]	Retrospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (q 3 mo for 2 yr starting day + 100)	8	100	57	67	Delayed immunoglobulin reconstitution was seen in all patients and persisted beyond the rituximab maintenance period
Graf et al[47]	Retrospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (variable dosing schedule but median doses = 8)	157	Almost all the patients who received MR	HR of 0.33	HR of 0.40	In the landmark analysis at D 100 after auto-HCT 3 yr PFS and OS were statistically better in the MR compared to the no MR group
			R = 50, O = 107
Dietrich et al[48]	Retrospective	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 (every 3 mo for 2 yr)	72 R = 22, O = 50		90 (R) vs 65 (O)	90 (R) vs 84 (O)	Patients in both the arms were well matched. The median observation time was 56 mo
Gouill et al[49]	Prospective phase III	Rituximab 375 mg/m2 IV (every 2 mo for 3 yr)	238 R = 119, O = 119	81.4	93.2 (R) vs 81.5 (O) (2 yr)	93.4 (R) vs 93.9 (O) (2 yr)	All patients received 4 courses of R-DHAP followed by auto-HCT. The conditioning regimen of auto-HCT was R-BEAM (R=500 mg/m2)

CS: Chemo-sensitive; PFS: Progression free survival; EFS: Event free survival; OS: Overall survival; MR: Maintenance rituximab; HR: Hazard ratio; R: Rituximab arm; O: Observation arm; R-DHAP: Rituximab, dexamethasone, cytarabine and cisplatin; R-BEAM: Rituximab, carmustine, etoposide, cytarabine and melphalan; HCT: Hematopoietic cell transplantation.